SOAN Mission & Goals

                      

Messiah College Mission        

                    

Messiah College is a Christian college of the liberal and applied arts and sciences. The College is committed to an embracing evangelical spirit rooted in the Anabaptist, Pietist and Wesleyan traditions of the Christian Church. Our mission is to educate men and women toward maturity of intellect, character and Christian faith in preparation for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation in church and society.

                          

Program Mission

                         

The Sociology and Anthropology program at Messiah College will educate students to use a Sociological and Anthropological Imagination to understand and work for cultural diversity, pluralism and tolerance and to become responsible world citizens working toward social justice, doing service, and bringing about reconciliation in their occupations, in their communities and in the world. The program will contribute to the mission of Messiah College by providing strong majors and minors and contributing extensively to general education.

                        

Goals for Sociology and Anthropology Majors

                    

A.         To develop a sociological and anthropological imagination:

                           

• Learn how social structures and institutions operate
• Discover how the perspectives of sociology and anthropology contribute to the liberal arts and an understanding of social reality
• See the value of empirical analysis
• Understand the link between individual experience and larger social processes

                      

B.         To understand and respect cultural diversity

                  

• To understand variations across culture, class, race, gender, religion, ethnicity, value orientations and age and to understand how to appropriately generalize or resist generalizations across groups
• To develop an awareness of ethnocentrism, an understanding of the strengths of various cultures and an ability to work cross-culturally

                           

C.        To understand the role of theory

                         

• To develop the ability to see the world through the eyes of various theoretical perspectives
• To connect sociological and anthropological knowledge with other areas of knowledge
• To be able to think theoretically and conceptually and to be able to identify patterns of social behavior 

                   

D.        To understand how the self develops

                         

• To see how cultural, societal and structural factors influence individual behavior
• To understand the symbols and patterns of interaction between individuals and between individuals and social structure

                         

E.         To understand the role of evidence and qualitative and quantitative research methods

                                                   

• To learn scientific methodology for designing research studies, gathering and analyzing data, generalizing from data and critically evaluating published research
• To learn to think in a systematic way which tests hypotheses with data
• To learn quantitative skills that involve the gathering and analysis of quantitative data
• To learn ethnographic skills as means to understand various cultures

                          

Implementation

                               

Sociology and Anthropology Majors will take a solid core of Sociology and Anthropology courses. Students will gain a broad foundation in theory, research and practice. We will prepare students for careers in service, social change, social policy, research and for graduate school.

                          

Programs and courses in the department will reflect excellent academic and pedagogical quality and be student centered.  Requirements will be planned to give students flexibility. We will give particular attention to issues of diversity related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, and religion by including courses in these areas and by incorporating multi-cultural perspectives in all courses. We will encourage study abroad, service-learning, time at the Philly campus, internships, practicums and other innovative learning strategies. We will maintain strong collaboration and synergy between Sociology and Anthropology, Social Work and Criminal Justice.

                       

The department will also carry on research and action projects oriented to furthering foundational knowledge and toward assisting our community and the church in social analysis, needs and asset assessment, program design and evaluation, and social policy development. It will collaborate in working with community agencies and issues and with other departments and with a community research and resource center if one develop.

                        

                                 

Revised February 3, 2010