The Stevenson Center is run by a passionate faculty and staff who teach students and provide them with a support network that assists them in taking the next step in their careers. In some cases, faculty can provide students with new opportunities to advance themselves in their respective fields. One such faculty member is Dr. Michael L. Dougherty, a board member of the Stevenson Center and a professor of sociology here at Illinois State, who has written numerous pieces of scholarship for books and academic journals, both with students and on his own.
“I like working on these things with students because it brings a certain level of accountability, but the mentorship aspect is also really gratifying,” Dougherty said. “Watching students put together something special through draft after draft after draft, watching the ideas develop more clarity and coherence, it’s great.”
Some examples of Dougherty’s academic writing include a 2015 book entitled By the Gun or By the Bribe: Firm Size, Environmental Governance and Corruption among Mining Companies in Guatemala, along with being credited as an editor for Mining in Latin America: Critical Approaches to the New Extraction. A common theme is “extractive industries” like mining, and the potential problems that these industries bring about.
“My area of interest is really centered on environmental problems at the community level, like how communities address these things, especially in conflict with organizations or industries,” Dougherty said. “So, I’ve studied mining and recycling and tourism, and how the dynamics within a particular industry conflicts with the dynamics of the localities where the industry sets up shop and begins to operate.”
Dougherty also serves as the graduate coordinator for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, along with teaching a slate of 200 and 300 level courses. One thing that Dougherty stresses in his classes is the sociological toolbox, which focuses on “critical thinking, clear and coherent writing, research design, and core disciplinary concepts,” according to his faculty profile page.
“You need a certain skill set to succeed in the sociology program beyond simply being a smart person who’s willing to work hard,” Dougherty said. “Those things are important, but you also need to learn how to read a piece of scholarship, how to create a coherent argument from paragraph to paragraph that works toward proving the thesis of an entire paper, that sort of thing. It’s about making all of those pieces fit together.”
Dougherty stresses these fundamentals as an important part of being a sociologist.
“The beauty of sociology, and perhaps even part of the problem, is that it doesn’t have that sort of name recognition that other things do, because it’s incredibly broad and unwilling to constrain itself,” Dougherty said. “That makes it difficult to piece together what exactly you want to do with it, but on the flip side, this also means that you can do whatever you want with it.
“I stress those fundamentals because in order to tackle the fun stuff, like social constructs, you have to be able to articulate your ideas in clear, concise, and coherent ways so that you can make this your profession and make a living. We often stress the idea of not losing the forest for the trees, but sociologists tend to get lost in the forest, and I try to impart the wisdom to make sure that students take the time to really notice the trees before they try to take on the whole forest.”
