Community and Urban Sociology

Dear CUSSniks,

To the extent that you have bandwidth to focus on CUSS matters (and with all that is happening in our country and world, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t), I wanted to report on a few happening in the section, express some gratitude, and share with you some thoughts about how we collectively can strengthen the section over the coming months.

Dear CUSS Members,

I hope everyone is enjoying summer.  I am looking forward to seeing many of you at our meetings in Philadelphia this week.  We have been busily planning our section events, starting with our reception which will take place on Thursday evening at the Post.   We have an exciting slate of section sessions that start the next morning with “Reimagining Urban and Community Sociology through Data Science”, followed by “Education and Urban Inequality”, “Climate Change, Urban Inequality, and the Future of Cities”, and “Critical Approaches to the Study of Policing of Urban Spaces”.   Our roundtable sessions cover the following themes: Contesting Urban Governance, Education in the Urban Context, Framing Diversity and Contestation, Gentrification, Getting Housed, Losing Shelter, Housing, Planning, and Politics, Neighboring and Community, Police and Spatial Surveillance, Race and Place, Urban Business and Property, and Urban Theory.  I would like to thank the session organizers for putting together a stellar group of papers.  Our business meeting will immediately follow the roundtables and will include our awards presentations. 

This has been a busy year for CUSS.  Many of the discussions that have taken place during my term have centered on ways to improve the section to foster broader involvement and inclusivity, particularly in both elected and volunteer leadership roles.  One of the most visible steps that has been taken towards this end has been in revamping our awards process, including in the constitution of committees, awards submissions, and evaluations.  We now have a portal for awards submissions that allows collects the same information from all applicants, as well as requiring text based only submission of articles aimed at mitigating some sources of potential bias in the review process.  We are open to suggestions about how to improve these processes moving forward.    

As my term concludes in August, I wanted to express how much of a pleasure it has been to serve CUSS as your chair. I am excited to welcome in the new leadership and opportunities to contribute to the continued growth and success of our section.

Best,

Mary J. Fischer