Department of Sociology

Pamela Jackson, Director of Undergraduate Studies, worked with undergraduate and graduate students to establish our new undergraduate Sociology club in fall, 2017.

WOKE owes its name to students enrolled in the summer GROUPS scholars program. At that time, these students were taking a sociology course on Racism as a Social Problem. When told that previous sociology undergraduate students were yearning for a Sociology Club, they were asked to submit possible names. After a couple of days of gathering their responses, the one that emerged the most often had the word “WOKE” in it. It was the winner. The students reported that this sociology class “woke them up to reality.” In their first call-out meeting in the fall, we asked the students “What does ‘woke’ mean to you?” and “When did you get ‘woke’?” Here are some of their responses:

In November, 2017, WOKE partnered with the sociology honor society (AKD) with the support of other academic units to organize a panel discussion about post-election stress among millennials. This panel included four current sociology graduate students and two graduates of the program, one of whom works as Associate Professor at DePauw University and the other as the director of the Social Science Research Commons. The audience was thrilled as they became part of a conversation that started with a “def” poem by Jelani Ince (one of the panelists). The students were then drawn in by the personal stories of the panel as well as the statistical picture that emerged from the data on postelection stress.

In March, 2018, WOKE served alongside LaCasa and several community organizations that met off-campus to provide information, music, free food, and activities for kids to members of the Hispanic community. A local church in the area had canvassed certain neighborhoods, inviting Hispanic families to the location to learn more about the variety of resources provided in Bloomington. This was a risky invitation, given that the scheduled date of this event was one day prior to the official “end date” of the DACA program. Members of the Hispanic community were already on edge and not necessarily trusting of outsiders. Nonetheless, five WOKE officers, two WOKE members, and three IU students (who simply wanted to help) arrived at the location ready to help and utilize their Spanish language skills. Several families responded to the invitation and were met by a supportive group of volunteers. The IU students worked primarily with the children as they navigated crafts and games designed for young hands and bodies. This effort captured one of the vision statements of WOKE as they collaborated with other collegiate and non-collegiate associations with the goal of empowering disadvantaged populations/groups. WOKE has plans to engage in two additional collaborative projects before May, 2018.