Cannon to begin new chapter in teaching and service

Kevin Cannon, program director and associate professor of criminal justice studies, is slated to take on the role of Department Chair of Sociology and Criminal Justice Studies in the fall of 2011.

The Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice Studies at SIUE has four programs which are: Undergraduate Criminal Justice Studies; General Undergraduate Sociology; Employment Relations Undergraduate Concentration in Sociology; and Master’s of Sociology.

Kevin Cannon, program director and associate professor of criminal justice studies, is slated to become the new chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice Studies in the fall.

At the beginning of the 2011-2012 academic school year, Cannon–who has been teaching for 16 years–will take on his new task as the department’s first chair from the criminal justice program.

“Our department gets along extremely well; all of the faculty members have been completely supportive of me. I think everyone has been very supportive of Dr. Kauzlarich during the time that he has been the chair,” said Cannon. “So, I don’t anticipate any big problems–everyone gets along really, really well.”

David Kauzlarich, department chair and professor of sociology, has served as the chair of the department for six years.

According to Cannon, SIUE’s sociology and criminal justice programs are in overall excellent shape and his main goal, as the new chair, is predominantly to maintain the quality of the department’s programs.

“There are no big problems that we have to address. In terms of criminal justice, we’re going to try to get a little more involved in the general education program–we haven’t done that a lot in the past because we’ve just been dealing with our own majors and having a limited number of faculty. We’ve got a little bit more faculty now–we have six criminal justice faculty members,” explained Cannon. “In terms of sociology, everything is pretty solid–they’re pretty heavily involved in general education… The master’s program in sociology is in pretty solid shape; the employment relations program in sociology is also in pretty solid shape.”

Cannon also noted that it would be ideal if the criminal justice program could start a master’s program. He explained that as the department continues to expand, over the next few years, that goal may become more viable.

Cannon brings a wealth of teaching and academic experience to the table and the graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha also has experience working in the criminal justice field.

“While I was getting my master’s degree, I worked as a juvenile intensive supervision officer,” said Cannon. “It was interesting. It was an intensive supervision program. In your typical probation program you would have minimal contact between the officer and the clients. In the program I was in, it was daily contact. So I had this very small case load, but I had daily contact with all the kids.”

In terms of his academic conquests, Cannon’s research agenda has been examining homophobia amongst criminal justice undergraduate students.

“I’ve heard a lot of comments in my classes over the years… of people saying things that were offensive to gays and lesbians,” said Cannon. “So trying to determine if criminal justice students were more homophobic than non-criminal justice students was something I was interested in. So when I came to SIUE, I began to do some research in that area. I plan to continue research in this area, but I prefer to put most of my energy into teaching and service. ”

In the fall, Cannon will begin a new chapter in his mission to teach and serve.

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