“We’re just going to have to do more with less,” this is the mantra of academic administrators across the country. If you’ve read The Chronicle or Inside Higher Ed in the last few years then you know the topic of living with budget cuts is evergreen. The times they are a changing and as budgets constrict teachers are expected to teach more students and more courses with less resources. You’re just going to have to learn to do more with less. But you know this mantra is nonsense. No one does more with less.

Doing More with More:

The power of community and collaboration should not be news to professional sociologists. Colleagues in departments across the globe share syllabi, resources, and teaching ideas with the peers in their department without any reservation. Not doing so is widely seen as being uncollegial. While the value and RIGHTNESS of this sharing is so obvious at the departmental level, many academics are wary about sharing with their peers online.

However, in the “doing more with less” reality we find ourselves in the only way to ease the pain of constricting resources is to work together nationally and globally. If sociology educators used Internet technology as a platform for sharing resources with our peers across the planet, we could broaden our collective resources and do more with more.

Many of us need to expand our conception of being collegial and who we perceive as a peer. If you are a professional sociology educator reading this, then to me you are my colleague. Sharing my resources with you only makes sense to me and I hope that my giving will inspire you to give to the community as well. You can get involved by participating in any of the following.

The Movement’s Already Afoot. Join Us.

Online Resources:

  1. Join the Teaching Sociology Google Group/Listserv

    The Teaching Sociology Google Group/Listserv is a community of postsecondary sociology educators who share resources, ideas, ask and answer questions about how to teach sociology. It’s a great place to find activities for your classes, best practices for teaching, and much more.

  2. Share your teaching resource on ASA’s peer-reviewed TRIALS online

  3. Share online videos and find new ones for your classes at SociologicalCinema.com

  4. Share a teaching resource right here on SociologySource.com

Offline Resources:

  1. Join the ASA section on Teaching and Learning in Sociology

  2. Share your teaching resource with the Teaching Sociology Journal