Congratulations 2020 Graduates!

While we cannot celebrate with our 2020 graduates in person, Sociology faculty and staff want to congratulate all of our BA, MA, and PhD graduates. We are so proud of you!

Congratulations Undergraduate Award Winners

We are pleased to announce the following winners of our 2020 Department of Sociology Undergraduate Awards:

Dean’s Recognition Award. Each year the Dean’s office awards an "Outstanding Senior" award in each department. The selection criteria are: demonstrated academic excellence exemplified by an exceptional grade point average, election to honor societies, participation in research, as well as other academic achievements departments may wish to consider. This year, Marc Duqueney is the winner of the Dean’s Recognition Award .

Lucia Maria Houpt Award. The Lucia Maria Houpt prize is awarded to a graduating senior exhibiting excellence in sociology. Jamie Bakleh is our winner this year.

Nathaniel Cantor Scholarship. The Nathaniel Cantor Scholarship is for sociology students who plan to enter the fields of social work or vocational rehabilitation. The scholarship this year goes to Emily Ng. Emily will be pursuing her MSW at UB.

Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award. Each year we invite majors and minors to submit term papers or sociological research projects written within the current academic year for consideration for the Best Undergraduate Student Paper Award. Papers were judged based on their incorporation of a sociological perspective, originality, clarity of presentation, and readability. We had many excellent submissions and have selected a first and second place winner.

Our first place winner is Harry Grupper for his paper “Reading Through the Lens of Mertonian Strain Theory: Is it deviant to not conform to traditional femininity?” In his paper, Harry evaluates the use of Robert Merton’s Strain Theory to analyze gender non-conformity in creative nonfiction.

Our second place winner is E. Allen Tabor for his paper, “Recidivism, Risk Factors, and Treatment.” In his paper, Allen examines risk factors for recidivism and outlines proposals to reduce recidivism rates.

Congratulations Graduate Student Award Winners

Adeline Gordon Levine Excellence in Teaching Award. Zaque Evans is the recipient of the 2020 Adeline Gordon Levine Excellence in Teaching Award!

We evaluated many impressive, high-quality applications for the teaching award this year. It is a testament to the quality of Zaque’s teaching portfolio and the influence he has had on students (as evidenced in his eighteen (!) student nominations), that he was able to stand out among such a talented pool of instructors.