|
Dear Alumni and Friends,
I am delighted to be able to communicate with you as the new chair of the Sociology Department. I came on board this past September and already we are all together actively engaged in a number of important projects keeping with the tradition of high caliber scholarship and professional engagement the department has sustained since its inception. However, before I tell you more about some of these initiatives, let me take advantage of this opportunity to introduce myself since this is the first time I address you.
I arrived at Santa Clara University after expending pretty much all of my adult life around the East Coast. A native of Cuba, my parents and I migrated to the states in the early 1970s where I pursued my post-secondary training in sociology. For the last nine years I taught Sociology at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC and I went on to chair its Sociology program for the last seven years. Besides my experience and a passion for anything sociological, I bring to our department a firm commitment to continue the same academic excellence that make all of you so proud to be part of the Bronco sociology family. I am currently engaged in a few international projects but the two that I am most proud of is my affiliation with the university of the Basque Country and Valladolid in Spain and my recent trip, as a Visiting Lecturer, to my homeland where I directed a seminar on social research and ethics at the Cultural Institute Felix Varela, a degree granting institution sponsored by the Vatican.
Again, as you read through our newsletter so ably produced by Professor Marilyn Fernandez, you will find more detailed information about our department and the many exciting projects of our faculty. Let me highlight a few. This Winter and Spring quarters the department will promote sociology through a series of brown bags talks, we will sponsor a major conference honoring Cesar Chavez, and will host Professor Tomas Jimenez from Stanford University who will deliver a distinguished lecture. Our Sociology Club is active again and we will continue with the student annual conference that has become a tradition at the end of each of academic year. Besides instituting a very active internship program, we expect to revitalize our curriculum with new courses and new faculty who will come on board to follow on the leadership path that a few of our colleagues, who inevitably will retire in the next few years, initiated.
All and all, the point I would like to convey is that our department continues its commitment to distinction and academic excellence and we all wish you do your part in staying engaged with us so that together we continue to sustain the Bronco sociology pride that make us so distinct and unique among other peer institutions.
Dr. Enrique Pumar
Chair, Department of Sociology
|
