Nearly everything we do as human beings is shaped by social forces and factors, Dr. Wiley truly embodies this. Sociology infects every aspect of how they interact with the social world. The sociological imagination informs everything they do. Sociology shapes how they interpret the world, interact with others, and enables them to see the world through so many different perspectives. Everything is sociology and sociology is everywhere!
Lia's contact information :
Email : lmc73@uakron.edu
Follow Why Sociology on Instagram : @Whysociologypodcast
Four speakers : Angela Adkins, Daniela Jauk-Ajamie, Lia Wiley and Estrella Lemus
Angela Adkins : Welcome to
Dani Jauk-Ajamie : Why Sociology
Angela Adkins : A podcast series featuring many interviews with sociology majors who have taken Career Pathways beyond academia in applied and clinical careers,
Dani Jauk-Ajamie : And who show
Angela Adkins : Not only tell
Dani Jauk-Ajamie : Why and how sociology matters in today's world. We are
Angela Adkins : Angela Adkins from Stark State College and
Dani Jauk-Ajamie : Daniela Jauk from the University of Akron,
Angela Adkins : Both located in rubber city, Akron, Ohio,
Dani Jauk-Ajamie : But we feature sociological movers, change makers and shakers from all over the US and the globe
Estrella Lemus : Hello listeners, welcome back. It is your guest host, Estrella, and today I'm here with Dr. Lia Wiley. Dr. Wiley is a professor of instruction with a PhD in sociology. Her work focuses on criminology, deviance, substance use, family violence, popular culture, research methods, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She's passionate about helping students think critically about complex social issues and making research, accessible and meaningful. Outside of work, she enjoys reading and listening to those audiobooks, crocheting and spending time with her dog, daughter, and her partner. Hello, Dr. Wiley. Thank you for being on. How are you today?
Lia Wiley : Thank you for having me. I am great
Estrella Lemus : All right, let's get right into it. What is your current field and your job within it? Essentially, give me the elevator pitch for your job.
Lia Wiley : So currently, I am a professor of instruction. And what that means is, I teach. That is mostly what my job consists of, is teaching. I get to do research as fun. Um, I can do it for merit raises, which that's a whole another thing that we're don't have to talk about, but I, my main job is to, um, teach, um, students sociology. I love my job. I feel like I am one of the luckiest people in the world that I can't, I almost can't believe that that it is my job to talk about sociology all day long. On every topic that I actually really care about.
Estrella Lemus : I mean, that is the definition of doing what you love, you know, and I am jealous. I hope one day I get to do the same thing. But, in your job or in your everyday life, how does sociology inform what you do?
Lia Wiley : Everything I do, everything I am, everything that I touch or come across is inspired by or infiltrated by sociology. It is. It's something I cannot turn off. I see it in even mundane, everyday things. I'm like oh, I can explain that. Here we go, here's a sociological imagination at work. Getting to see people make those connections sometimes on their own. is wonderful. But it is, I can't even go to a grocery store without sociology infecting me,
Estrella Lemus : you and me both, let me tell you.
Lia Wiley : I wonder what who owns all these brands. I wonder, what is going on here or why?
Estrella Lemus : Everything is connected
Lia Wiley : Yes. How is everything connected? Do the price of these things impact the price of those things? Why are certain products on the ground? How come some are at my eye level? Even that.
Estrella Lemus : Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I have the same thing. I wish I could turn it off sometimes, but then other times I'm grateful for it, you know? I have literally started to analyze everything I do in a sociological context, and sometimes it's so awful. Sometimes you just want to enjoy something, but here I am like, and why do I enjoy this? I wonder. So we can understand how sociology informs you, but why did you gravitate towards sociology? And what did you learn as a sociology major that helps you most today?
Lia Wiley : It was not my plan to be a sociologist. To be very honest here, I did not know what sociology was until my junior year of college. And the only reason I found out was because I was just trying to take credits of I needed an elective class. It didn't really matter what it was in. I just picked something that was going to fit. based on this is really sad, location, and time of day. As a college student, I did not want to take early classes, so it was on a in the afternoon, right across the street from where I lived, and that was a big bonus, and it was a class called criminology. And then it was like everything made sense. I don't even, it was like, oh my gosh. This is what I was looking for. My original plan was to go. I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I wanted to go to medical school. Um, I thought that I thought I knew what I wanted to do. Um, but then, reality in a few ways hit me. I took a chemistry class and did horribly. Um, and had to take it over the summer. I did get an A.
Estrella Lemus : Yay
Lia Wiley : But that was really a little bit of a wake-up call. I never struggled in a class until that. And I figured it out, and then the real deal breaker was I took a gross anatomy class, which is where you get to see dead bodies, and it was just there. It was an older gentleman and I walked into the lab setting and I walked back out. And that is how class went. I am not kidding. That is what happened. I said, no.
Estrella Lemus : Yeah, I've heard of people in their college years doing the cadavers and stuff, I could never do that. But I relate to that so much because I also had no idea what sociology was. In high school, I always picked psychology over sociology just because I didn't know what it meant. And I, my sister got a degree in sociology and I was like, whatever that is, okay. And then when I finally got to college, It was a sociology class that did it for me too. like, and I know what you mean about sitting there and being like, wait, this is it. This is this is the one that I like. This is the one that just like, it's like a puzzle piece that makes everything makes sense and it makes you be able to be like, yep, this is what I want to do.
Lia Wiley : Yes, it almost, like, it unlocked something, and I don't even, in my brain, of, wait, and for me, it was a criminology class, which was, I don't know how I took that before I took intro to sociology, but that's, I don't know. But then it was like, wait, how can I think about stuff other than crime? And then it just, it sucked me in.
Estrella Lemus : It snowballed from there. And speaking of your undergrad, what is one thing that you wish you had known as a sociology major in that you would pass along to current students?
Lia Wiley : One thing that I really wish I would have known is that social scientists actually really do a lot of data analysis. That it is not just the major for people who don't like math, or are afraid of statistics, or afraid of scary math. Um, but those are some of the most valuable skills that I learned was how to ask questions, how to, how to find a way to analyze all sorts of different questions. Or things that I was curious about. And I really wish, that I would have known to actually really pay more attention to and really file that away that that's really what a lot of the meat of sociology is, is ways to ask questions and ways to think about different phenomena that you see, um, and that's really something that some of those skills are invaluable, of being able to actually really critically think through, and then actually being able to analyze data. Pretty, fairly quickly. is a skill that I would not have expected from sociology, that it was going to be very, eventually, it was going to be, for me, it was going to be very heavily in the statistics side of things. And it was surprising.
Estrella Lemus : I completely agree. I feel like nearing the end of my sociology degree, I was afraid of math too. I was afraid of statistics is not something I wanted to do. And then, honestly, it was like my junior year, I was like, this is actually really important if I ever plan on doing any research if I ever plan on publishing anything that I've ever wanted to talk about, this is like, a good thing, not only to have credibility, but to understand what's in front of you too. You know, if you don't, you never get taught how to look at data and how to interpret data. You're not gonna know how to look at anything like in the real world, you know? So I agree that these skills are something that's gonna be with you for the rest of your life, and that you're gonna use in all sorts of different career paths, not just being a sociology professor, but in everything that you do, you know? And speaking of careers, how did you find your current position?
Lia Wiley : Uh, so it's kind of a story of luck. Mostly, mostly luck. Sometimes that's where academia is, is a story of luck. How I found this position I'm in, I had graduated with my PhD. I was adjuncting at 3 different places. And the university of Akron was one of them. And it just so happened that when I was hired, there was a really, it was a trend for a bit of hiring these positions called non-tenure trek or NTTs. Those positions differ. You cannot get tenure. That's one thing, but most of those the big part of those positions is teaching. And I had figured out that I really, really, really, really liked teaching. And I actually really didn't like the research part all that much of that pressure to get things to produce. And they were opening up a full-time position here. They actually had, at one point, there were 3 of us. So it was a really, I think that a lot of universities thought this was the future, was doing these non tenure track lines along with tenure track lines. We don't really see that, that's not really what shook out in the field. In any of higher education. Yeah, there are still non-tenure track positions, but, um, I just happen just so happen to really luck out that a position became available. I applied, and I, the, I will tell you, that was not the first, I did not get, the 1st time a job was available at the University of Akron, did not even make the cut for interviews. So I, it came somehow, came around again, and I made the cut. It was... It was both luck and just being, and being at the right place and being at the right, being just being able and willing to take on a different kind of position. That wasn't really, I did, I did envision myself just having a traditional job, but it turns out I actually really just liked teaching. I get, love getting to interact, um, with students, and most of the research I do now is students are already involved in it, so it's just a different It's a different version of being a professor.
Estrella Lemus : And I think that, like, being a teacher, seeing the light bulb in somebody's head is something that is indescribable. I'm not even a teacher, but there's times where I'm describing a sociological concept to somebody and I just like see it click. I'm like, yes, you got it. Yes. Now, you understand. So I can see what you mean about. That's my ultimate goal too, is to be a professor. So I think that's loving that now, I can see how it is very fulfilling for you.
Lia Wiley : Getting those light bulbs. is, uh...
Estrella Lemus : And I am, having been one of the students in your class before too. And, well, on the topic of being a student. For someone looking to enter your field, what are some important pieces of advice that you would offer?
Lia Wiley : Important piece of advice is, Don't limit yourself to what you think sociology can be or what it can go along with. Sociology, I think so much of it is about being analytical about the world, the social world that you're in. I think it can go along with so many on its own. You, if you mention a topic, I can tell you how a sociologist would study and look at it, but it also can be a supplement. If you really do like being, you want to be an accountant, I think sociology can help you there too.
Estrella Lemus : I completely agree, yeah. And then lastly, what do you see for the future of sociology?
Lia Wiley : Oh, the future of sociology.
Estrella Lemus : Scary.
Lia Wiley : It is, it can be scary. I think that sociology right now as a field, it is Um, something that is deeply misunderstood, I think, in many contexts. Sometimes it's just the word sociology. I don't know if it's just the soci part that is the scary part of, I don't know how it got kind of misconstrued in a lot of context, but it is the study of society. I think we have a lot of studying of society that is going to meet that needs to be done of, like, present day, but of the past and of the future. I think this is some sociology can help us navigate really uncertain futures. Like, we have words for things that, what is this feeling where no one really knows what exactly the new rules are? We know it is anomie. Like, we have words and ways to help us understand things that we keep hearing the word unprecedented. And we know that's not true for a lot of things. We can look at things sociologically, borrow from our friends and history.
Estrella Lemus : See, this happened before again.
Lia Wiley : And find out that human beings aren't that creative. We tend to kind of follow similar patterns.
Estrella Lemus : We love that repetition
Lia Wiley : So I think it's incredibly useful for the moment. And It's that scary word part. I think we'll just have to we'll have to get over it. People have to get over it. If we want to understand our context of what we're in or how we want to look our future to look, I think we, it is vital that we actually do listen to sociologists or any kind of social scientist.
Estrella Lemus : And I completely agree. I mean, that's why we have the podcast to urge people to listen to what the sociologists have to say, and it's a place where, you know, people can come and the listeners can learn, and I think that it's so invaluable for me to hear from your perspective and others' perspectives of people who have their PhD, you know, for me to listen to you guys about sociology, because I'm learning just as much, you know, as the listeners hopefully are.
Lia Wiley : And it's exciting to have the future of sociology here, we get to talk to each other. We get to navigate this whole world together.
Estrella Lemus : Yes. I completely agree. Thank you for being on the podcast, Dr. Wiley
Lia Wiley : You're welcome
Estrella Lemus : And Goodbye to the listeners.