Teaching Social Problems 2024 Annual Division Meeting Wednesday, July 10, 2024 (1 pm EST) via Zoom Attendees: Morena Tartari (chair), Jacqueline Zalewski (member), Laurie J. Linhart (member), Andrea D. Miller (member who joined at the end the meeting). Four-part meeting agenda: 1. Sessions for the 2025 SSSP meeting, which will be in Chicago. 2. Material you'd like to see in and/or contribute to an upcoming division newsletter. 3. Student paper award 4. Special division activities for the next year. Agenda #1 SSSP offers 3 kinds of sessions: 1. Critical Dialogue: Short (5 minute) presentations by up to eight authors. These sessions encourage conversation and audience participation. This format is particularly impactful as it purposefully fosters dialogue between scholars and activists. We strongly encourage you to make use of the Critical Dialogue format as much as you can, especially for sessions you are sponsoring/co-sponsoring on the program theme. 2. Papers in the Round: These sessions are composed of multiple roundtables in the same room. Each roundtable should have four papers with an established scholar as discussant. 3. Regular: These sessions are composed of four papers and a discussant or five papers without a discussant. These are less common for TSP sessions. The aim is to plan 3 of our own sessions, one of which is on the conference theme. Then, we can offer up to 7 co-sponsored sessions. 2025 SSSP annual meeting theme: “Insurgent Sociology in a Time of Crises” Ideas for individual sessions: • “Teaching Social Problems in a Time of Crises: Challenges and Opportunities” (Connected to theme of 2025 Annual Meeting) (Regular) • ““Bring Your Own Brilliance”: Sharing our Ideas That Have Been Successful in Teaching” (Papers in the Round) • Performing in Teaching Social Problems: How to Keep Students’ Participation Alive (Papers in the Round) Ideas for joint sessions: • “Teaching Social Problems: The Present and the Future of Textbooks” (Critical Dialogue) [sessions with textbooks authors] (with Social Problems Theory Division) • “Teaching Social Problems through IE” (with Institutional Ethnography Division) • “Vulnerable Students: Experiences and Lessons Learned in the Classroom” (with Educational Problems Division) • “Taylor Swift is in my Syllabus! Teaching Social Problems through Media and Celebrities” (with Social Problems Theory Division) • Intersectionality in the Classroom” (with Racial and Ethnic Minorities) • How to Teach Social Change in the Classroom (with Community Research and Development Division) • Teaching Social Problems in Different Academic Systems and Institutions: Commonalities and Differences (with Transnational Initiatives Committee). Agenda #2 • Division newsletter needs to be downloaded by all member: to reach this goal we need to advertise more the newsletter through SSSP social media, email, and increase members’ involvement and participation • We need to hire a division newsletter editor ($150) and social media coordinator ($ 50) to support the Division Chair in her work • We need to add a feature story about innovative teaching methods and • Interview to senior and junior members about how they teach social problems and engage in public sociology • Other items like list of sessions at next SSSP meeting etc. are already present in the Newsletter. • To improve the Newsletter we need more members’ participation in writing and an editor. Otherwise, the Newsletter will be kept at the minimum of one issue per year as suggested by members. Agenda #3 In 2023-2024 we had a student paper competition with only one submission. The previous year (2023-2023) we received no submissions at all. The competition format was changed last year (2023-2024). Members decide to keep for the next year the same format for the student paper competition that we used in 2023-2024 in which we asked students to submit a short paper (max 2000 words) to respond to the question: “What is the joy you find in teaching social problems?”. Members suggest new strategies to advertised the call: through the Division newsletter and emails to Divisions members by November, through SSSP social media, a specific email sent by SSSP to all members who are students, by contacting the student Board member, and the Outreach and Membership Committee to advertise the call among their networks. We need to understand which is the proper social media platform to reach out to students. Agenda #4 On July 1st, 2024, the Chair submitted a proposal for a Division Workshop for the 2025 Annual Meeting in Chicago that was previously discussed with a group of members who showed interest in organizing the Workshop. Decision from the SSSP Board about this submission is still pending. The Chair asked that people brainstorm and share with the her any ideas that occur to them to organize at least one activity (seminar) per year with a virtual format. This question will be sent also to the Division members’ mailing list. Some members already gave their availability to help to organize activities over the year.