Chris Andrews, Associate Professor & Department Chair
CONTACT
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: Gilbert House Rm. 32
Phone: 973-408-3953
BIO
Christopher Andrews joined the Sociology faculty at Drew in 2011. After graduating from Miami University (B.A. Psychology, minor in Sociology), he received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Maryland. He teaches courses on social psychology, research methods and the sociology of work and occupations. His areas of interest include the effects of technology on work and employment and how technological innovations shape social interaction and identity.
He co-authored a book chapter (“The Virtual Assembly Line”) in Management, Labour Process, and Software Development (2005) with Craig Lair and Bart Landry based on their collaborative study of thirty software startups in the Washington, D.C. metro area. He has also authored an entry on C.Wright Mills’ (1959) classic essay on the ‘sociological imagination’ in the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (2007), reprinted in the (2009).
Currently, he is researching the effects of self-checkouts in the supermarket industry, examining how social forces shape the adoption and use of self-service technology, including the role of labor unions, competitors and customer attitudes.
Roxanne M. Friedenfels, Professor Emerita
CONTACT
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: Gilbert House Rm. 24
Phone: 973-408-3642
BIO
Roxanne M. Friedenfels, Chair and Professor of Sociology, has been teaching at Drew since 1987. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Sociology from the University of Michigan, and her B.A. degree in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin. Her areas of expertise include social change, gender and the sociology of aging. Besides articles on gender and aging, she published Social Change: An Anthology in 1998.
Caitlin Killian, Professor
CONTACT
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: Gilbert House Rm. 24
Phone: 973-408-3183
CV
BIO
Caitlin Killian joined the sociology faculty at Drew in 2001. She received her Ph.D. in sociology with a certificate in women’s studies from Emory University and her B.A. in comparative literature with a concentration in women’s studies from Swarthmore College. She teaches courses on gender, families, and reproduction. Her areas of interest include sexual and reproductive health and justice; motherhood; adoption; immigrants and refugees; Muslims in diaspora; intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, socialization and identity issues; women and work; and human rights (religious rights, women’s rights, and children’s rights).
Her new book, Failing Moms: Social Condemnation and Criminalization of Mothers (Polity 2023), is about the ever-rising standards for mothers’ behavior. Mothers are simultaneously revered and reviled, and they face not only their own guilt but increasing threats of jail and removal of their children for actions that were not considered neglectful or criminal a few decades ago. The book analyzes how the cultural norms for mothers and fathers differ including expectations of egg donors vs. sperm donors, criminalization of women’s behavior during pregnancy, and “failure to protect” prosecutions for mothers whose children were murdered by a third party – all examples that demonstrate how standards of contemporary motherhood are more about disciplining women than about helping children.
She is also the author of North African Women in France: Gender, Culture and Identity (Stanford University Press 2006). Other publications include articles on sexual and reproductive health and justice in post-conflict contexts Review of Radical Political Economics, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the misuse of public health to control women Journal of Applied Social Science, children’s educational rights Educational Policy, decision-making about the HPV vaccine among young adults American Journal of Sexuality Education, white adoptive parents and children of color Family Relations; Sociological Perspective, immigrants’ identity negotiation Social Psychology Quarterly, Muslim women and the headscarf in France Gender & Society; Sociology of Religion, Arab women’s motivations for migration Women’s Studies International Forum, and highly-skilled immigrant women’s labor force incorporation Social Currents.
In addition to her academic work, she has also served as a consultant for the United Nations developing the online module on gender and sexual and reproductive health and rights for United Nations’ staff training and doing research in Turkey on how to better enable Syrian refugee women’s access to the labor market. With Jennifer Olmsted, she wrote a report for UNDP: Women and Work: Improving Gender Integration in the Livelihoods Response to the Syrian Crisis.
Website: https://caitlinkillian.com/
Twitter: @CaitlinEKillian
James O'Kane, Professor Emeritus
CONTACT
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: Gilbert House Rm. 24
Phone: 973-408-3409
BIO
James M. O’Kane, Professor of Sociology, taught at Drew since 1967 until retiring in 2006. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Sociology from New York University, his M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University, and his B.A. degree in Economics from St. Frances College (Brooklyn, New York). His research interests within Sociology include criminology, research methods, demography, ethnic studies and urban problems.
He has authored over 50 articles as well as four books: Pamplona- A Sociological Analysis of Migration and Urban Adaptation Patterns(1981); “The Crooked Ladder: Gangsters Ethnicity and the American Dream (1992) and Wicked Deeds: Murder in America (2005). He completed a book on his early life in Brooklyn, New York titled, Jefferson Avenue: Stories from a Brooklyn Boyhood, 1941-1957 (2013). Professor O’Kane was the Research Director of Social Science Research Associates, a Madison based research consulting firm specializing in survey research and other methodologies relating to problems and issues in education, crime and community relations.
Frequently interviewed by the mass media, he has been quoted in newspapers including The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, U.S.A. Today, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, Houston Chronicle and Miami Herald. Prof. O’Kane has also been featured in an in-depth interview on the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour on the topic of homicide. He currently lives in Madison, New Jersey.
Jonathan Reader, Professor
CONTACT
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: Gilbert House Rm. 23
Phone: 973-408-3408
BIO
Jonathan W. Reader, Baker Professor of Sociology, has been teaching at Drew since 1980. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Comell University, his M.P.A. in Public Administration from New York University, and his B.A. in Government from Cornell University.
He served for two years as an officer in the United States Public Health Service. He has authored or co-authored twenty articles, papers, research reports, reviews and speeches on such topics as community disasters, corporate mergers, the impact of elections on local government fiscal policies, innovations in medical technology, local governments’ strategies for revenue generation, politics of local school districts and substance abuse treatment policy. In 2009, his classic co-authored article “From Art to Corporation: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and The Cultural Effects of Merger” was included in an edited volume of critical essays,The History of the Book in West:1914-2000, marking the second time it has been included in an anthology on mass communications.
Since 1968, he has done extensive consulting with organizations in both the public and non-profit sectors for more than five decades. His clients have included the City of Indianapolis. Control Data Corporation, Donovan, Newton, Irvine and Leisure, Local 32B & J of the Service Employees International Union, New Jersey Chapter of of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, New Orleans Department of Public Health, Novartis, Palmer Video and Stockton State College. He consulted on and acted in the movie, Meeting the Beautiful People, which debuted to favorable reviews in New York in 1994 and Berlin in 1995. He consulted on Erving Goffman’s influence on the husband in the novel, A Dangerous Husband by Jane Shapiro.
His teaching specialties include classical sociological theory, mass communications, political sociology, sociology of health and illness, sociology of management and the introduction to public health.
His current research interest focuses on the health and illness of U.S Presidents. In 2004, he received the Drew University President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. He chairs the Sociology Department and directs the Public Health Major.
Susan Rakosi Rosenbloom, Associate Professor
CONTACT
E-mail: [email protected]
Office: Gilbert House Rm. 33
Phone: 973-408-3335
BIO
Dr. Susan Rakosi Rosenbloom, Interim Faculty Director of the Center for Civic Engagement and Associate Professor of Sociology, is an advocate for integrating academic learning and research with real-world experiences. During her doctoral studies at New York University (PhD Sociology), she completed two years of public service with AmeriCorps Project SafetyNet, which defined her lifelong commitment to civic engagement. Her recent Corporation for National Community Service funded collaboration, Neighbors in Need, develops interventions to prevent homelessness by designing landlord support programs using housing vouchers. Dr. Rosenbloom teaches community-based learning classes, trains faculty in civically engaged learning and guides students in finding workable solutions to complex problems. Her research and community projects include: a four year study of adolescent friendship, peer group racial dynamics, NYC school choice policies, child soldiers as a social problem and vaccination decision-making among emerging adults. She teaches courses in Education, Childhood Studies, Civic Engagement, Digital Society, Public Sociology, Defining Complex Problems, Finding Solutions and Innovation Action Lab. When she’s not working, she’s raising two children with her partner, caring for an elderly parent, learning hydroponics, and trail running in the Ramapo Mountains of NJ with her pitbull.