Symposium allows collegians to express sociological instincts

By Martin Ricard
Diversity Institute Fellow

03.27.06

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After watching "Sex in the City" for three years, Belmont University senior April Watkins decided to make it the topic of her research project.

The HBO series, which featured four New York City women attempting to balance their love lives and careers, ultimately made a significant statement about the changing nature of relationships between men and women, Watkins concluded.

The show's female characters gained money, power and respect - all without the attachment of men.

"What I got from watching the show is that it's great to be a single woman…," Watkins said Monday after presenting her research during the third annual Inter-University Sociology Symposium at Belmont University. "We can connect with that because we're in higher education, and later we're going to be the aggressive, career-oriented working women."

Watkins, who called her project "Masculinities in Sex and the City," was among 26 undergraduate sociology students from Belmont, Vanderbilt, Fisk and Tennessee State universities who showcased their work in front of peers.

The symposium gave presenters a chance to integrate lessons from the classroom with social issues that many will face in their careers. It also allowed the universities to continue an ongoing dialogue among students who are being educated in different social and cultural environments, although the campuses are just miles apart.

"The ultimate goal is to have more collaboration between the universities throughout the year," said Dr. Mary Karpos, a senior lecturer in the Vanderbilt sociology department. "That will keep the dialogue going on."

Students in the sociology club at Fisk, a historically-black college in north Nashville, sparked the idea for the symposium after expressing concern that sociology majors at local schools needed to interact more, said Dani Smith, assistant chair of the Fisk sociology department.

The students wanted to exchange ideas and to present and produce their own research, Smith said. The idea appealed to students on other campuses.

Now, the symposium is held at a different university each year. The next one will be at TSU.

The event has led faculty at the four schools to collaborate.

Karpos has taught for four years at Vanderbilt and Fisk, which have established a cross-registration program.

Most importantly, students get to address real issues they face in society and eventually hope to change, said Dr. Andi Stepnick, chair of the Belmont sociology department and the symposium's coordinator.

"This isn't just a fluffy cheerleading session," Stepnick said. "It's an opportunity for intellectual discourse, which has an element of critique in it. We're having students get together in collaborative way but also having them engage in dialogue."

Watkins knows that first hand, especially as a student who is about to emerge in a very critical world.

"We're all part of Nashville," Watkins said. "When we don't collaborate, we miss out. It's all about the idea of building community relations. We have to understand what the needs of our community are, and if we isolate ourselves to Belmont, we can't understand that."

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