Graduate Programs: Introduction

Rural Sociology at Ohio State dates back to 1904 with the founding of the Department of Rural Economics. The first step toward a separate program came in 1913 when the first Rural Sociology course was offered, followed quickly by others. Rural Sociology at Ohio State frequently has been a leader in the discipline in the United States and internationally. Our faculty have produced important undergraduate textbooks in the discipline and ground breaking scholarly works on social change, diffusion of innovation, locality and inequality, soil and water conservation, labor market restructuring and policy, the Amish, rural crime, women in development, and international development.

Current Rural Sociology faculty have national and international reputations and are active in both the Rural Sociological Society (with membership at 1,500) and the American Sociological Association (membership over 16,000). Rural Sociology faculty also are members of professional organizations that match their substantive interests, including the American Sociological Association, the Society for Community Development, the American Society of Criminology, the Southern Sociological Society, the Latin American Studies Association, the Applied Anthropology Association, the Population Association of America, and the Soil and Water Conservation Society. Several faculty sit on important national committees and hold influential positions in these associations. A profile of each faculty member is provided at the end of this document.

Eight rural sociologists serve as regular faculty in the Department of Human and Community Resource Development (HCRD). One member is an anthropologist who joined the department and is an associate faculty member in Rural Sociology. A ninth rural sociologist, tenured in the department, currently holds an administrative position at the university but continue to work with graduate students. Associated faculty from Sociology, Agricultural Communications and other disciplines further enrich the strong scholarly environment of Rural Sociology at The Ohio State University. HCRD also houses graduate programs in Agricultural Communication, Extension Education, Agricultural Education and Vocational Education.

Rural Sociology maintains strong ties to Ohio State University Extension (OSUE) and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC, sometimes called the "experiment station"). Therefore, Rural Sociology graduate students have opportunities for interdisciplinary and applied as well as academic, discipline-based research.