Samuel A. McReynolds, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Society, Culture and Languages
Professor
Academic Coordinator, Office of Citizenship and Civic Engagement
Dr. McReynolds is a Professor of Sociology, Chair of the Department of Society, Culture and Language, and the Academic Coordinator of the Office of Citizenship and Civic Engagement. He has a doctorate from Cornell University, a MA from the University of Vermont, and a BA from the Univesity of Virginia. He has been at 91AV for 24 years and has taught a variety of courses and has been engaged in a wide range of scholarship. He has raised over $500,000 in research and program supporting funding during his tenure Chair of the Sociology Department and as Coordinator of the OCCE. He teaches: Citizenship, Classical Social Theory, Contemporary Social Theory, Society in Latin America, and Societies of the Future through Sience Fiction Cinema. He has published on agrarian reform in El Salvador, island community sustainability in Maine, mentoring, eugenics, Vermont communities, environmental sociology. He is currently working on a project examining undocument Brazilian immigration in New England.
Credentials
Research
Current research
Civic engagement and social capital: the processes and impact of core curriculum citizenship education at the 91AV; the foundations and future of environmental sociology; agrarian reform in Scotland; demographic change in Maine and New England.
Selected publications
"Land Reform in El Salvador and the Chapultepec Peace Accords," The Journal of Peasant Studies, Vol. 30, No.1, Oct. 2002, pp. 135-169;
"Frontiers, to Farms, to Factories: The Economic and Social Development of Vermont from 1791 to 1991," Vermont History, Vol. 71, Winter/Spring 2003, pp. 88-97;
"The Relationship of Land Tenure to Agricultural Practices and Environ-mental Sustainability in El Salvador," Culture and Agriculture, Vol 22, No. 3 September;
"Guia para iniciantes em sociologia do meio ambiente," in Ambiente e Sociedad, Ano II, No. 5, Segundo Semestre de 1999; Co-Author with A. Christine Brown,
"Community and Environmental Compatibility in the York River Watershed, York, Maine--A Project-based Interdisciplinary Service-Learning Course," in David C. Brubaker and Joel H. Ostroff, (eds) Life, Learning, and Community, Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Biology, American Association for Higher Learning: Washington, D.C..
Research interests
Agrarian reform in El Salvador; rural development in New England; curriculum assessment.