Allison Churilla, M.S.

Faculty, CLI
Specialty: Sociology
Phone: 507-258-8025
Fax: 507-258-8066
Office: 318 Commons
Email: achurill@umn.edu

Just ASK Hours

Education

Ph.D., Sociology,
University of New Hampshire, expected 2011
M.S., Park, Recreation, and Tourism Resources, Michigan State University, 2003
B.A., Sociology and Mathematics, Luther College, 2001

Background

I entered my first year of college with ideas of becoming a veterinarian, but my first-year class in sociology captured my imagination and led me to pursue greater depth in the discipline. After graduating from college with a double-major in sociology and mathematics, I entered my first year of a master’s program with ideas of working in community recreation. Again, my sociological imagination pulled me back to the discipline and eventually led me to pursue my doctorate in sociology. I am thrilled to be teaching in this interdisciplinary program at UMR because of its strong emphases on interdisciplinary teaching, innovation in the classroom, and positive student growth. In addition to teaching, I am also writing my dissertation to complete my PhD in Sociology at the University of New Hampshire.

Teaching

My own undergraduate education taught me to interact and collaborate with college faculty both within and outside of class. These expectations of student-faculty interaction aided my transition to graduate school and prepared me for a position on a campus that places strong emphasis on teaching excellence and academic relationships. I continue to implement these values in my own teaching, encouraging students to develop and ask questions, seek out answers, cultivate arguments, and openly and critically exchange ideas with peers and instructors.

I understand students’ learning process as a conversation, an exchange of ideas that requires a common language. Learning to speak the language of sociology requires many of the same investments as learning a foreign language. It is my goal that once students have been equipped with the necessary language of the discipline, they can begin to appreciate and critique existing knowledge through the development of a sociological perspective. 

Research

Broadly, my areas of research interest include social stratification, work and occupations, income and earnings, gender, race and ethnicity, immigration, and families. I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of New Hampshire and expect to complete my degree within the current academic year. My dissertation uses several years of Census data to examine the differential effects of immigrant workers on the wages of male and female native-born workers in U.S. labor markets. In particular, it is hypothesized that the gender wage gap has narrowed in recent years due, in part, to an increasing presence of foreign-born workers in U.S. labor markets. This research is motivated by my particular sociological interest in the dynamics that underlie the gender wage gap.

My empirical work informs the courses that I teach. To date, a considerable portion of my publications have had an applied focus with various applications for undergraduate curricula. As a graduate research assistant at the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, my policy and issue briefs contributed to state and national discussion on low-income and working families, having been referenced by policymakers and covered by state and local media. This type of research enhances an undergraduate curriculum, as it presents students with applied examples of demographic research and social policy applications. I welcome the prospect of working with students on this type of empirical research within and outside of the classroom. 

Selected Publications

Churilla, Allison. 2009. “The State of Working New Hampshire 2009.” Issue Brief No. 15, Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.

Churilla, Allison. 2008. “Urban and Rural Children Experience Similar Rates of Low-Income and Poverty.” Issue Brief No. 2, Carsey Institute, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.

Potter, Sharyn, Allison Churilla, and Kristin Smith. 2006. “An Examination of Full-Time Employment in the Direct-Care Workforce.” Journal of Applied Gerontology 25: 356-374.

Gittell, Ross, Allison Churilla, and Ann McAdam-Griffin. 2005. “The Educational and Economic Progress of Women in New England 1970 to 2000: The Mismatch and Why?.” Connections: The Journal of the New England Board of Higher Education.