Focus on Faculty: William Finlay

Sociology professor and department head William Finlay is currently featured in the Focus on Faculty on the UGA homepage:

A few highlights/insights on Finlay's perspective on teaching:

What interests you about your field?

I enjoy its diversity and the sheer range of human behaviors and institutions that one can examine and explain as a sociologist. It remains as fascinating a discipline to me now as it did when I took my first undergraduate sociology class nearly 40 years ago.

What are some highlights of your career at UGA?

Becoming a Meigs professor, receiving an award from one of the sections of the American Sociological Association for my first book, and starting a study-abroad program in South Africa.

How does your research or scholarship inspire your teaching, and vice versa?

For me, they've also gone hand in hand. My current research project is a direct outgrowth of a class I have been teaching – I often get ideas for research from teaching. And when I'm working on my research, I often think about how I would present the findings to students, which I find to be a good way of forcing myself to make the argument as clear and interesting as possible.

What do you hope students gain from their classroom experience with you?

A set of concepts and ideas for understanding the world around them, whether they are at home, at work or visiting unfamiliar places. I like to think of sociology as a kind of toolkit that we can use to explain human behavior and I hope that my students take some of these tools with them.

Be sure and read the whole thing.

Image: University of Georgia. Finlay, right, with students.