Dr. Mitch Berbrier Professor, Sociology Contact 1310 Ben Graves DriveMorton HallRoom 245Huntsville, AL 35899 Campus Map 256.824.2296mitch.berbrier@uah.edu Biography I am a left-handed and right-footed only child who grew up in a quiet suburban neighborhood near Montreal. I lived in a three-bedroom split-level house with my mom, dad, and maternal grandmother. For most of my childhood, my parents ran a neighborhood children's shoe store, the kind of mom-and-pop local enterprise so rare these days. I received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from McGill University in 1984, majoring in Accounting. Oops. I worked briefly in an accounting firm before returning to school to earn a second bachelor's degree, a B.A. in Psychology, in 1987. I then moved to Indiana for grad school, where I earned the M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology. After a brief stint in Milwaukee, I moved to Huntsville in 1996 to take a job at UAH. Here I have held a variety of positions -- Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor, Chair of the Department of Sociology, UAH Faculty Senate President, and Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences. In 2017, after three years in the Dean's role, I resigned to return to the far less stressful and potentially satisfying position of Professor of Sociology for the remaining few years of my career. Family is extremely important to me. I am luckily and happily married to Melanie Berbrier. We are a busy blended family that includes four teenagers -- Samantha and Jack (my two children), as well as Brooke and Jesse (Melanie's two); George and Octavian, our sweet and loopy dogs; and Casper and Sunny (two loud and jittery parakeets). Curriculum Vitae Education Ph.D., Sociology, Indiana University, 1996 M.A., Sociology, Indiana University, 1990 B.A., Psychology, McGill University, 1987 B.Comm., Accounting, McGill University, 1984 DEC (Diplome d'etudes Collegiale), Vanier College, 1981 Recent Publications Berbrier, Mitch. 2013. “How Monuments Endure: Public Good Framing as Reiterated Problem-Solving in the Statements of Purpose of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens, 1916–2005.” Qualitative Sociology 36(2): 161-87. Berbrier, Mitch. “The Peace Path of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens: Making Place for Cultures of Peace.” Peace and Change, 37(3):413-443. Berbrier, Mitch. “The Diverse Construction of Race and Ethnicity.” Pp.567-591 in Handbook of Constructionist Research, edited by James A. Holstein and Jaber F. Gubrium. NY: Guilford Publications. Berbrier, Mitch. “White Supremacy.” Pp. 1032-33 in Vincent Parillo, ed., Encyclopedia of Social Problems, Volume II. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Spencer, J. William, Donileen Loseke, James Holstein, and Mitch Berbrier. “Social Problems Theory.” In Toward a Just World. 2nd edition. Knoxville, TN: Society for the Study of Social Problems. Berbrier, Mitch and Elaine Pruett. "When Is Inequality a Problem? Victim Contests, Injustice Frames, and the Case of the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Student Support Services at Indiana University" Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35:257-84. Berbrier, Mitch. “Assimilationism and Pluralism as Cultural Tools.” Sociological Forum 19:29-62. Berbrier, Mitch. “Why are there so many ‘minorities?’” Contexts. Spring 2004. 3:1 erbrier, Mitch. “Making Minorities: Cultural Space and the Categorical Status Claims of Gay, Deaf, and White Supremacist Activists in Late 20th Century America.” Sociological Forum 17:553-591. erbrier, Mitch. “Disempowering Minorities: A Critique of Wilkinson’s ‘Task for Social Scientists and Practitioners.’” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. 29:3-19.