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Department Awards

Department Awards

Department Awards celebrate the best paper by a graduate student (Becker Award), achievements in undergraduate teaching (Dodge Award), and honors that year’s outstanding graduate student (Kane Award).

Award Recipients

The Jeanine Becker Award for Graduate Student Papers

The Becker Award is given annually to the current student in the doctoral program who applies and whose paper is judged to best represent the highest quality of sociological scholarship and Notre Dame’s commitment to serving human welfare and justice. Full award description

The winner for the 2021 Becker Award is Junrong Sheng for her paper titled "Whose Attitudes and Money Matter? The Way Gender Talks in His Housework Participation in China".

Past Recipients

2020 Anna Gabur & co authors: Libby Trudeau and Abigail Jorgensen
2019 Luiz Vilaça
2018 Julie Dallavis & Mike Wood
2017 Shanna Corner & Justin Van Ness
2016 Stefanie Israel & co authors: Dustin Stoltz and Marshall Taylor
2015 Daniel Escher
2014 Kevin Estep
2013 Joseph Workman
2012 Justin Farrell
2011 Justin Farrell
2010 Michael Strand
2009 Elizabeth Covay & Guillermo Montt
2008 Michael Strand
2007 Jonathan Hill

David L. Dodge Memorial Teaching Award

Brianna McCaslin is the 2021 recipient of the Dodge Award for excellence in teaching her class, Introduction to Gender Studies.

Past Recipients

2020 Abigail Jorgensen
2019 Paige Ambord
2018 Kelcie Vercel
2017 Julie Dallavis
2016 Kristi Donaldson
2015 Jon Schwarz
2014 Daniel Escher
2013 Jeffrey Seymour
2012 Kari Christoffersen
2011 Sara Skiles
2010 Chris Hausmann
2009 Bob Brenneman & Karen Monique Gregg
2008 Brandy Elison

The John J. Kane Memorial Award

The John J. Kane Memorial Award is presented each year to an outstanding sociology graduate student. Full award description.

Tomás Gold is the 2021 recipient of the Kane Award.

Past Recipients

2020 Brian Fitzpatrick & Luiz Vilaça
2019 Michael Rotolo
2018 Dustin Stoltz
2017 Marshall Taylor
2016 Kevin Estep
2015 Bryant Crubaugh & Daniel Escher
2014 Melissa Pirkey
2013 Justin Farrell
2012 Heather Price
2011 Brandon Vaidyanathan
2010 Patricia Snell Herzog
2009 Bob Brenneman
2008 Nicolas Somma-Gonzalez
2007 Xochitl Bada & Jennifer Yonkoski
2006 Brandy Elison

Award Descriptions

The Jeanine Becker Award for Graduate Student Papers

The Jeanine Becker Award is named after Dr. Jeanine A. Becker, PhD./R.N., who was a doctoral student in Notre Dame’s Sociology Department between 1985 and 1994. Dr. Becker was a medical sociologist who studied the empowerment of nurses in American hospitals for her dissertation project, directed by Professor Rodney Ganey. She also presented papers on the “Healthy People 2000” initiative; the effects of smoking on natality, lead poisoning in children, infant mortality, competency-based nurse training, and school health.

After completing her doctorate, Dr. Becker stayed with the Sociology Department as an Adjunct Professor until her untimely death from a brain tumor in April 1997. She was known among her peers and colleagues as both a dedicated scholar and a compassionate practitioner. She directed and served in several departments of Memorial Hospital, South Bend, Indiana, before, during, and after her time as a graduate student.

The honor carries with it a monetary award of $200.00. In addition, the student’s names will be inscribed on a plaque which will hang in the departmental office.

David L. Dodge Memorial Teaching Award

The David L. Dodge Memorial Teaching Award is named for a Notre Dame Professor in sociology who died in 1988, is conferred annually on the graduate student in our program who has most distinguished himself or herself in the teaching of undergraduates. The Undergraduate Studies Committee votes the winner of this award. The honor carries a monetary award of $200.00. In addition, the student’s name will be inscribed on a plaque which will hang in the departmental office.

Professor Dodge was one of our department’s most dedicated teachers. Indeed, he instituted several courses for graduates to help them prepare for careers as teachers in college or university settings. David Dodge also won the gratitude of successive generations of students for the work that he performed as an advisor; he is remembered particularly for aiding part-timers on the long and often arduous road toward a degree. As a teacher, Dave was filled with enthusiasm; as a colleague, he was invariably selfless; as a mentor, he effused confidence and good cheer. It was in the hope that we might honor the memory of such a unique person and encourage these traits in future teachers that colleagues and students of Professor Dodge inaugurated the fund that is the source of this award.

The John J. Kane Memorial Award

The John J. Kane Memorial Award is presented each year to an outstanding sociology graduate student. The honor carries with it a monetary award of $200.00. In addition, the student’s names will be inscribed on a plaque which will hang in the departmental office.

Dr. Kane was a dedicated teacher who taught in the Department from 1948 until his death in 1972. He was chairperson of the Department from 1953 to 1963. He contributed to many Catholic publications, mainly in the areas of family and religion, and his column in Our Sunday Visitor was published weekly for many years.

Among the positions he held were Assistant Dean, Arts and Letters College, Notre Dame; President, The American Catholic Sociology Society; Regional Vice-President, Indiana Conference on Family Relations; and Indiana Director and Member of the Religious Commission in the National Conference on Christians and Jews.

Upon his death while on leave of absence from the University of Notre Dame to build the Department of Sociology at St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia, his alma mater, the Department established a memorial fund in his honor, derived from contributions by his colleagues, friends, and former students, to be presented to the graduate student who shows the “greatest academic excellence in any given year.”