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NMHU Launches New Social Justice Concentration in Sociology and Anthropology

Photo of Jacob Avery

Dr. Jacob Avery

The new emphasis will deliver get ready students intrigued in pursuing careers in justice and human legal rights

January 12, 2023

New Mexico Highlands University introduced a new social justice focus in Sociology and Anthropology this drop. Pupils from any willpower fascinated in social justice can also select to increase it as a minor.

The concentration in social justice will deliver college students with equally theoretical and sensible frameworks for comprehending human rights, justice, and social actions from local and world wide views. Courses can be preferred throughout a variety of disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, criminal justice, heritage, English, Political Science, and Spanish, between some others, and coursework will get ready learners for professions in group organizing, leadership, global non-governmental businesses, and law, amid other solutions.

Dr Erika Derkas, professor of Sociology and Gender & Women’s Reports, comes from an activist background and mentioned her activism is element of what encouraged her to start the social justice concentration. In addition, the deep divides throughout the United States and globally prompted her to want to provide an academic framework for pupils who want to engage in the do the job of dialogue and mend.

“I want leaders to emerge out of this program,” Derkas said. “We require to share suggestions and have a house to have an understanding of how we got below and what we’re heading to do about it. Young men and women have the language for what’s taking place but they are stumbling in conditions of what a just society seems like, so this coursework is about creating area for embracing the variances that people today carry to the table.”

Dr. Jacob Avery, a new college member at NMHU, was hired especially for his track record in concept and his do the job all around social justice concerns. Learners enrolled in his classes this spring will be learning about housing protection issues and alternatives.

Undergraduate students Carlo Marino and Lee Standing Elk were among the initially learners to enroll in social justice coursework previous fall. They each chose social justice to understand the historical contexts for injustice and to study how to lead to constructive modify in their very own communities in the long term.

“For my future programs, I’d like to operate for a place that does advocacy for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women of all ages or domestic violence, or any non-gain that is concerned in advocating for other people,” Standing Elk claimed.