About Us

Northern Michigan University’s Sociology and Social Work Department offers majors and minors in sociology and social work and courses in anthropology. As you consider your academic and career future, we hope you will take some of the wonderfully rich courses offered by the department, even if you choose to major or minor in other areas. 

There is often confusion about the difference between sociology and social work.  Talking in generalizations can be risky, but we can make some general distinctions between the two areas.

• Social Work: Social work has an applied focus. Social workers may be policy makers and planners at many levels. More often, however, they are practicing social work by assisting individuals, families or communities with problems. 
• Sociology: Sociological work is generally less applied, though it often involves the study of problems and rarely involves one-on-one work with individuals.

A department is more than the sum of what people do, but our faculty members are doing many interesting things. They try to involve students in their scholarly and research activities. A sample of what our faculty members are involved with includes:

• Professor Patricia Cianciolo is at the forefront of NMU’s gerontology program
• Professor Cornell DeJong works with male batterers and writes textbooks
• Professor Michael Loukinen produces video documentaries about Native Americans
• Professor Rexin Yang studies economic change and women in mainland China