Thoughts from the Dean
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Lyn Ragsdale
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Did you ever stop to think that the social sciences have something to say about almost everything you do in your daily life? How new is your personal computer? Anthropologists at Rice have studied how elites and intellectuals set the pace for
technological advances from the printing press to high speed computers. How much do you pay in taxes? Rice economists study the effects of different tax rates and structures on governments' abilities to provide services. Does it matter which kind of voting machine is used when you go into the voting booth? Rice political scientists examine how new electronic voting machines affect election outcomes and the reporting of those outcomes. How does your brain map what you have just read? Rice psychologists are answering questions about how the brain traces what you see and what you experience and what happens to those mappings if you become injured or have a stroke. How does race determine who you will date? Sociologists at Rice investigate how interracial exchanges and the lightness or darkness of people's skin affect marriage and other partnerships.
Departments and Faculty
There are five departments in the School of Social Sciences: Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology. Each department has top, nationally and internationally known scholars who work on the discovery of “social facts.” As much as scientists seek to uncover facts about the natural and physical worlds, social scientists seek to uncover facts about the social world. These social facts are actually in many ways more difficult to uncover than facts about the physical universe. Because the facts are about people, they are often a moving target. People change their minds; asteroids do not. People think they see something when often times they do not; cells are not per se confused or forgetful. Here are just a few of the social facts that Rice social science faculty have uncovered recently:
- A large proportion of Hurricane Katrina victims who fled to Houston do not intend to return to their previous homes.
- People can unconsciously process color and visual information even with a disruption of their primary visual cortex - that part of the brain responsible for processing visual stimuli.
- The religious backgrounds of senior leaders in American government, corporate life and the entertainment industry influence the decisions they make and the career paths they take.
- Islamic religious laws affect every aspect of finance - from personal loans to investment banking - in Muslim countries.
- In post-communist Russia, natural scientists have rejoined the international scientific community in ways quite distinct from their isolation during the communist era.
More information on these and other research achievements of our faculty are noted in the School's brochure "Eye on People ".
The School
The School of Social Sciences is the smallest of the main divisions on campus, but it serves the largest number of undergraduates. With 73 faculty, we taught nearly 6000 undergraduate students in an array of classes in 2007-2008, including "History as a Cultural Myth," "International Finance," "Transitions to Democracy," "Brain and Behavior," and the "Sociology of Religion." The school has over 700 majors and another 150 graduate students working on Ph.D.s.
Interdisciplinary Programs
In addition to its five departments, the School also has three inter-disciplinary undergraduate programs:
- Cognitive Sciences is an inter-disciplinary field that seeks to understand such mental phenomena as perception, thought, memory, the acquisition and use of language, learning, concept formation and consciousness,
- Managerial Studies provides undergraduates with an understanding of the environment in which businesses and other organizations exist today, and of some of the tools employed by management in the commitment of its financial and human resources, and
- Policy Studies introduces students to the concepts and tools needed to understand and study policy and exposes them to specific policy areas such as energy, health, and education.
Research Centers
The School also houses:
- The Shell Center for Sustainability, which studies issues of energy and the environment;
- The Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life (CORRUL), which has a major grant to study the connections between race and religion;
- The Urban Research Center, which is the permanent home of the Houston Area Surey.
Dean's Bio
As for me, I am a political scientist. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1982. I taught at the University of Arizona for nineteen years and moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001 serving as Political Science Department Head for five years. I have been an editor of Political Research Quarterly, one of the main regional political science journals and the director of a survey research lab. I have published a variety of articles, books, and book chapters on the American presidency and American elections. I am currently working on two books on these topics. One is entitled Presidents' Tough Choices: Major Decisions Since Truman. This book uncovers new social facts about American presidents. When presidents make major decisions, their advisors race to be the first person to give the president the option he ultimately chooses. This means that a good deal of information, contrary opinions, and other options are never considered. Decisions with significant negative consequences often occur. The other book is entitled The American Nonvoter. It uncovers social facts previously unknown in research on American elections: there are different kinds of nonvoters; they are not just one big group. Some do not vote because they dislike the candidates; others stay away from the polls because they see no difference between the candidates; still others fit the stereotype of nonvoters and do not pay much attention to politics at all.
I look forward to keeping you up to date on the various happenings in the Social Sciences and the accomplishments of our very talented, renowned faculty.