I am a professor of sociology who studies issues of class and inequality, particularly around higher education - how does class background affect going to college, staying in college, and becoming a successful college graduate?  When I first began research in this area I was mostly focused on first-generation and working-class college students.  I then moved to a focus on college outcomes, and am currently involved in a study examining class impacts on the academic career success of sociologists. 

Mostly, I use qualitative research methods in my work.  I like interviewing people about what they believe and how they understand the world.  I also teach qualitative research methods to both undergraduates and graduates students, and I have authored an open access (free!) textbook for use in these courses. 

I love teaching and heartily subscribe to bell hooks' notion that education is the practice of freedom.  I've taught at small liberal arts colleges in the past and try to bring many of the student-centered discussion-based teaching arts developed there to my classrooms at Oregon State.  In addition to teaching qualitative research methods, I happily teach the core Classical Sociological Theory course, where I get to introduce sociology students to the joys of learning about Marx, Weber and Durkheim for the first time.

I'm also a proud "working-class academic," which means that I remember what it was like to grow up poor and how difficult it was sometimes to access quality education.  For most of my childhood my father was enlisted in the US Army and I moved around a lot, which gave me opportunities to see parts of the world I wouldn't have otherwise seen.  I am very grateful for that.  I've long been active in the Working-Class Studies Association and am currently presiding over the American Sociological Association's Community of First-Generation and Working-Class Persons in Sociology.