On April 28, 2024, nineteen former presidents of ASA put out an open letter endorsing the Member Resolution for Justice in Palestine currently on the ASA ballot. That letter was disseminated to ASA section chairs/listserv managers and appears on the website for Sociologists for Palestine (S4P). The development of the Resolution began last December when a group of 125 Sociologists sent a letter and proposal to the ASA Council and Executive Committee in support of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In January 2024, the ASA Council declined to adopt that statement or to issue their own ceasefire statement. In early February 2024, the ASA Council issued a statement on academic freedom – here is the text. Later in February, S4P submitted a petition, signed by 581 ASA members, to include the Resolution for Justice in Palestine on the ASA ballot – here is the text. You must be a current member of ASA to vote in the ongoing election; voting continues through May 20, 2024, at 5 PM Eastern.

On April 30, the National Academy of Sciences announced the election of 120 members and 24 international members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Among them are four US-based sociologists or demographers:

• Nicholas A. Christakis, Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Department of Sociology, Yale University
• Thomas Dietz, professor and University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Environmental Science, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, Michigan State University
• Noreen Goldman, Hughes-Rogers Professor of Demography and Public Affairs, Office of Population Research, Princeton University
• Arne L. Kalleberg, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 

See the complete listing on the NAS website.

The ASA has announced the inaugural ASA Virtual Mini-Conference (VMC), January 30-31, 2025. It will be based on the theme of the in-person 2025 Annual Meeting, “Reimagining the Future of Work.” Spread over two days of programming from 11:00 a.m.–6:30 p.m. Eastern, the VMC will offer eight paper sessions, a spotlight session on the future of sociology, and two book forums, as well as a networking event. The online portal will open for submissions on June 10, 2024. The deadline to submit is July 11, 2024, 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

For complete information, see the ASA website.

Members and friends of DCSS gathered for the 2024 awards reception on April 18. (All photos by Alex Rodriguez, DCSS Secretary.)

Jill Howard received the Master's student paper award.

Maria Valdovinos Olson received the doctoral student paper award.

Abid Shamdeen (right) and Brandon Jacobsen (center) accepted the Cooper award on behalf of Nadia’s Initiative from Gay Young, DCSS President.

Steve Tuch (center) accepted the Rice Award for Career Achievement, shown here with Jill Brantley (left) and Gay Young.

NIH is implementing multiple changes that will impact the preparation and peer review of most grant applications submitted to NIH for due dates on or after January 25, 2025. See this article for details and a link to a guide notice that provides an overview of each change to help the community contextualize them as details are released over the next few months. 

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has issued a request for information (RFI) that invites input on addressing gaps in:

• Identifying determinants of mental health disparities beyond the individual level (for example, at the social, systemic, and structural levels.)
• Developing culturally responsive, multilevel interventions to address mental health disparities.

NIMH is interested in hearing from healthcare providers, scientific research communities, patient advocacy groups, people with lived experience, educators, and other interested parties about these gaps in U.S.-based research.

See the complete RFI and submit a comment online.

The Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) held its 10th annual Social Science Advocacy Day on April 9. Now, COSSA is asking social scientists and others to contact Congress directly.

COSSA writes, "Congressional appropriators are preparing legislation that will determine funding for federal science and statistical agencies for the next year. With strict discretionary budget caps currently in place, it is essential that we fight for the prioritization of social and behavioral science research funding in fiscal year (FY) 2025. Now is the time to write to your Members of Congress to urge their support for research funding in FY 2025!"

Visit the COSSA Action Center page to send a letter to your Senators and Representative and tell them why it is critical that they prioritize funding in FY 2025 for the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Institute of Education Sciences, National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, International Education and Foreign Language Programs, and the federal statistical system. 

On March 18, President Joe Biden issued an Executive Order, titled “Advancing Women’s Health Research and Innovation.” This order directs specific advancements and improvements for research on women’s health, largely through the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, established by the Presidential Memorandum of November 13, 2023.

The Consortium of Social Science Associations reports that the Initiative draws on interdisciplinary backgrounds to advance research on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of conditions that affect women uniquely, disproportionately, or differently. This order now names the following topics of interest: women’s midlife health, addressing current gaps in research, and integrating women’s health research into federal research programs. These directions align with the President’s priorities to reduce health disparities, to translate research into real-life applications, and to ensure access to high-quality, evidence-based health care. The Executive Order coincided with many announcements made by federal agencies to promote women’s health research.

The Consortium of Social Science Associations reported in January that the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) in the National Science Foundation (NSF) had released Knowledge Base, a new user resource on NCSES tools and data. The website provides robust information on how to understand and use NCSES data as well as answers to frequently asked questions and a glossary for commonly used terms. The Knowledge Base is intended to help people navigate NCSES data while simultaneously providing support in an easy and accessible way. This resource comes as NCSES works towards making their data more available for public use.

NCSES is now requesting responses to a survey intended to improve NCSES data tools. This link will take you directly to the survey.

by Michelle Newton-Francis and Gay Young

Nadia’s Initiative is the 2024 recipient of the Anna Julia Cooper Award for Public Sociology by a Community Organization. In the face of socially produced racial/ethnic and gender inequalities, Nadia’s Initiative (NI) is dedicated to promoting sustainable projects for rebuilding communities displaced by war and conflict and advocating globally for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

Recently, the founder and president of Nadia’s Initiative, Nadia Murad, was named by Time as one of the Women of the Year 2024. Her profile opens as follows: “Nadia Murad dreamed of running her own beauty salon in Kojo [northern Iraq] … ‘In my imagination, the salon was a safe space where women and girls could share ideas, learn things, and have something for themselves,’ she says.” While Time’s emphasis on “the dream” of running a beauty salon is cringe-worthy, the opening sentence of Nishaun T. Battle’s article on Black girls and beauty salons argues, “The African-American beauty salon has the potential to be a space of refuge for Black women and a place where Black girls can learn from Black women about the challenges they experience in their daily lives.” * Battle maintains that the beauty salon provides a place for social commentary on emotional, mental, and physical health and where wellness and growth can thrive. Thus, Nadia Murad’s early imagination emerges as profoundly sociological.

That sociological imagination fully informs NI’s mission of creating a world where women and girls are able to live in equality and communities that have experienced crisis and displacement are redeveloped. NI advocates—at the local, national, and international levels—for resources and policies needed to rebuild communities sustainably and support survivors of sexual violence. Three Guiding Principles for the organization’s work reflect the sociological thinking that frames the analysis of how to remediate racial/ethnic and gender inequalities: All NI programs are (1) Survivor-Centered; (2) Community-Driven; and (3) intended to foster Sustainable Development and Peace.

We also note a significant accomplishment by the organization in its advocacy for survivors of conflict-related sexual violence across the globe. In May 2022, the Murad Code Project was launched as a collaborative effort among NI, the UK government’s Prevention of Sexual Violence Initiative and the Institute for International Criminal Investigations. The code serves as a guide for both investigators and journalists when interviewing survivors of conflict-related sexual and gender based violence. The intention is to institutionalize survivor-centered documentation practices which avoid re-traumatization of survivors and demonstrate respect for survivors’ needs and wishes and their right to make their own choices.

In our view, Nadia’s Initiative enacts approaches to and advocacy for displaced communities and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence that are sociologically informed and relevant to the DCSS service area—not only to residents who have experienced displacement and/or sexual violence, but also to the many local, state, national and international policymakers in the DMV region.

We hope you will join us in honoring Nadia’s Initiative at the April 18 DCSS awards reception.

* Nishaun T. Battle (2021) “Black Girls and the Beauty Salon: Fostering Safe Space for Collective Self-Care,” Gender & Society 35(4):557-66. See also Adia Harvey Wingfield’s Doing Business with Beauty: Black Women, Hair Salons, and the Racial Enclave Economy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), which examines one of the most popular businesses – hair solans – run by Black women, an often-overlooked group of entrepreneurs, revealing Black women business owners’ struggles for autonomy and their successes.