1 Introduction
Dr. Elizabeth (Beth) Torrens
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Trent University
B.A. (Western University)
M.A. (Western University)
Ph.D. (Western University)
Dr. Kristy Buccieri
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Trent University
B.A. (University of Ottawa)
M.A. (Carleton University)
Ph.D. (York University)
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Transcript
Beth: Welcome to the Social Profs Podcast with your hosts Beth Torrens and Kristy Buccieri. This is the podcast where we attempt to turn teaching inside out by engaging in conversations outside the classroom with faculty, community members, and Trent student alumni. Our goals with these conversations are to learn more about the benefits of a criminology or sociology degree and to talk about the ways that students can get more involved at Trent and in the community. We will also do a deep dive with some Trent professors to learn more about their approaches to teaching, what drives their research, and a few fun facts you can only learn when you turn teaching inside out.
Kristy: Welcome to the first episode of the Social Profs Podcast, where we aim to turn teaching inside out. Today we introduce ourselves as the hosts of this podcast and let you know what is to come in the weeks ahead. Since we subject our guests to rapid fire questions, we figured it was only fair we start the season by doing some ourselves. The Social Profs, Season 1, starts now! Hi Beth, this isn’t very exciting. We’re recording our first episode of the Social Profs podcast.
Beth: That is true. I’m very excited for this.
Kristy: Me too. I wonder if we should start by introducing ourselves. Do you want to go first?
Beth: Sure, that sounds like a good plan. So for those listening, my name is Beth Torrens. I’m an assistant professor in the sociology department. I teach primarily the socio-legal courses at the Peterborough campus, and my previous research has been all over. I’ve looked at gender and sexuality-based bullying, some policy stuff, and then I’m also now interested in teaching strategies and approaches. Kristy, I’ll hand it over to you to introduce yourself.
Kristy: Thanks, Beth. I’m Kristy Buccieri. I am an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. I’ve also been involved in the launch of the Criminology degree at Trent, which has been really exciting and rewarding, and has really awoken in me a love of curriculum design and curriculum mapping, which I know kind of makes me a nerd, but I really enjoy it. My research has been around homelessness, and more so lately I’ve been thinking about how we teach homelessness and how we talk about it more broadly. And so this project is really exciting to me as well because it’s thinking about how we communicate and how we can teach and how we can think of that as taking place outside of the classroom. And that’s really kind of the tagline of this podcast, right? Turning teaching inside out. And you know, Beth, I’m wondering if you can speak about that. What is this podcast about?
Beth: Well, it’s, on the one hand, a new way to connect with students, so something a little bit different than email. It’s something that you can listen to maybe on your way to campus, in between classes, and learn more about the faculty that you are seeing in classes that you’re learning from in some of your online courses. Maybe learn some fun new facts about them that you might not get just in regular class discussions. It’s also a really good way to learn more about what you might be able to do with your criminology degree or with your socio-legal specialization after you graduate. So we’re going to get into some possible career paths and we’re going to interview some others in the community who are in the area that you might be interested in pursuing. Other than that, Kristy, why should students listen to this podcast?
Kristy: Well, I’m slightly biased, but I’m going to say everyone should listen to this podcast. Why should students listen in particular? Because we are going to be interviewing some of their faculty, professors, that maybe they don’t quite know as well as they want to. So they’ll get to learn about their research interests. They’ll get to learn about what they love about teaching. And we’re going to throw some questions at them that are kind of rapid fire off the cuff, but will help get to know people in a bit more detail. I should note that we will ask people and faculty in particular the same questions. And we do that very intentionally so that you get a sense of how people will answer the questions differently. And it really helps to highlight the personalities in our department. And we have such fun people and such interesting people. Why else should you listen? Because you’ll get to hear from some alumni and learn about career paths and what our students have gone on to do and really quite interesting, remarkable things. As Beth said, you’ll get to learn about the community members who are involved in work in this field. And I think that there’s just so much to know about the world of sociology, criminology, and you can really come here and tune in and find out a bit more about it. Which takes me to a question for you, Beth. When can people expect new episodes to drop and where can they go to listen?
Beth: New episodes are going to drop each Tuesday starting in fall 2024 and so if students are interested you can also go to our new Instagram page that we have launched because we are going to be social media superstars as well with this. Our Instagram is Trent_Soci_Crim and we will have links to all of the episodes there. We’ll also have maybe a little bit of information about what you might hear in the episode and we will provide links as well to a resource with episode notes where you can get the transcripts for our podcast episodes and you can get some background information on things, recipes that our podcast guests might bring up during the episode. So we will have all of the links available for you through our Instagram page. Kristy, for you, I already kind of talked about it, but what else might students find in the podcast notes?
Kristy: Yeah, Beth we have a press book set up that is attached to this podcast. And so as you’re listening to the episodes, if you want to learn more about the speakers, if you want to learn more about the things they’re talking about, we’ll have all kinds of links set up, and we will also have a transcript of each episode. So if you want to read them along while you’re listening or simply just use the text version, that’s an option that will make it more accessible. So you can tune in or you can read it and there’s all kinds of additional links that are going to be there. That the project came out of the Shaping Social Crim Project. What is that all about?
Beth: That is actually our Teaching Fellowship Project that we started in 2022. It’s a three-year research project that you and I undertook to learn more about students in both programs, both criminology and students taking the specialization. And we just wanted to know more about, you know, why they picked one option over the other, what they’re thinking about the online versus in-person options in both streams, and what their experiences are like. And the goal with learning more about that was to actually do something with that information. So we wanted to make changes to the program, and we wanted to do that with students in mind and from informed by a student perspective. So we have already made some changes and we will talk about that in some of our episode updates as well, thinking about the changes that we’ve made, particularly to the Criminology Program. So the project is still ongoing. We have a year left. So Kristy, what should students know about our Shaping Soci Crim Project for the upcoming year?
Kristy: Yeah, they need to know that they can still get involved. There’s all kinds of opportunities still to do surveys. So we do the surveys twice a year. There’s a chance to win a $25 gift card to Amazon. And there’s also focus groups that we do in the spring. So we run three each spring, and we’re really interested in getting on Zoom and hearing your opinions about the programs, whether that’s social legal studies, sociology more broadly, criminology. We want to know your thoughts of students on what you like about the program and whether there’s anything we can do to improve the programs. So be on the lookout for those look for the shaping social criminals to come through, and please get involved.
[Music]
Beth: So, Kristy you mentioned doing some rapid fire questions with other instructors in the department. And for all of those instructors, the questions are going to be the same but we figured we’d throw each other a curveball and ask some of our own unique questions that neither of us have heard before. So with the rapid fire questions, these are questions that you can answer with as little information as you want or as much information as you want. You don’t have to explain if you don’t want to. But again, a unique way for students to get to know a little bit more about us and also about other faculty as well. Did you want me to start off and ask you your rapid-fire questions?
Kristy: Go ahead.
[Music]
Beth: All right, Kristy, what is something you would like to do more of?
Kristy: Read. I never get to read, and I wish I did get to do more of it. I love books. I, again, am leaning into my nerdy side, but the library is my favorite place on Earth, and I just wish I got to read more.
Beth: And I’m assuming when you say read more, you mean non-academic books.
Kristy: In general, anything and everything I could read, I would.
Beth: If we were to offer you a free trip anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Kristy: Oh, Greece. I always wanted to go to Greece. My last one to go to place was Scotland, and I got to go there on a conference. And I’m hoping or I’m willing it into being that I will get to go to Greece soon.
Beth: Next, we’ll just start looking for conferences in that area then. Name an academic that you would love to have a conversation with.
Kristy: I’ve been reading a lot of scholarship of teaching and learning literature lately, which is something we refer to as SOTL. And I have been reading some of the classics. So I would really like to talk to Ernest Boyer, who has written one of the foundation texts, and I did actually get to read it, contrary to what I just said. I did get to read it this week, and I found it so inspiring that I would really like to sit down and talk with him.
Beth: Nice. Hopefully I can join you for that conversation too, because he’s someone I’d like to have a conversation with.
Kristy: You’re invited.
Beth: Wonderful. Next question. If we were to log into your YouTube account right now, So what kinds of videos are going to be on the suggested video page?
Kristy: You know what, my YouTube is almost entirely, and this is very telling about who I am. It’s all dog music. So I work with my dog here, I work from home, and I put on dog music, which is very much just like spa music, but it’s very soothing and calming, and my dog just sleeps through the entire workday because of it, but every video recommendation is different kind of dog music. And if you have a dog and if you work from home or you study from home, I highly recommend YouTube dog music.
It puts them out and they just snore the whole day.
Beth: I was wondering if it might also involve a little bit of cat videos as well.
Kristy: You know, I don’t have cat videos because I have a real I love cat, who’s always so funny and hanging around that they couldn’t possibly compare.
Beth: All right, last rapid fire question. Boat, plane, train, or car?
Kristy: Boat. I’ve always loved water, and I would love to be out on a boat with a good book in hand.
Beth: Nice. Circling back to the beginning with those rapid fire questions.
Kristy: Right. Okay Beth are you ready for your rapid-fire questions?
Beth: I guess.
[Music]
Kristy: Who is your favorite superhero and why?
Beth: Maybe just the classic Superman, also dating myself because that was one of the TV shows that came out right around the time when and it was of interest to me. And yeah, it was, I definitely watched Smallville.
Kristy: What app do you use most often on your phone?
Beth: I’d say it’s a toss up between Instagram or TikTok.
Kristy: And you can check us out on Instagram coming soon.
Beth: Exactly, not very good. I look at a lot of Instagrams. I don’t do a lot of Instagramming myself. So again, we are aiming to be social media superstars, but we’re probably a fair bit off of that mark right now.
Kristy: Yeah, we’re hoping for a kind and gentle audience. What is your idea of the perfect day?
Beth: I’m going to go with you on this one, and it’s going to be reading somewhere near the water and reading something non-academic. uh just something to relax and enjoy the day.
Kristy: Nice. What is your favorite tradition or holiday?
Beth: Halloween. I am a big Halloween fan. It’s always been my favorite holiday. It’s different now when you were a kid. It was fun to dress up and go around and trick-or-treat but now as an adult it’s fun to watch kids do that, and so I go all out for Halloween.
Kristy: Nice. Okay, last one. We’re doing karaoke. What song do you pick?
Beth: It would probably be something from 2010 to 2014. I really don’t know, though. I have a horrible singing voice, so I just avoid any type of singing whatsoever.
Kristy: You and me both. So they won’t find us doing karaoke, but they’ll find us with a good book by the water.
Beth: Yeah, like you would expect to find two academic nerds.
Kristy: Which is a great plug for people to tune in and join us for this semester for season one of Social Profs And we have a lot of good episodes coming up. It’s going to be a really fun season.
Beth: We’re looking forward to it and we hope that our listeners are as well.
Kristy: We’ll see them soon.
[Music]
