Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology and Anthropology & Coordinator of the Global Scholars Program
Biography
Dr. Cognard-Black is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at St. Mary’s College. He teaches courses in social stratification and inequality, statistics and research methods, race and ethnicity, gender, families, demography, environmental sociology, and work and occupations, as well as first-year honors seminars and the course in introductory sociology. Professor Cognard-Black is a past Fulbright Scholar (Slovenia, 2012) and a Lifetime Fellow of the National Collegiate Honors Council. He also serves as Coordinator of the Global Scholars Program and is active in international education, for many years leading, along with his spouse, Dr. Jennifer Cognard-Black (Professor of English), a summer abroad course to study Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
Professor Cognard-Black serves as the faculty adviser for SMCM's chapter of Alpha Kappa Delta, the international honor society for sociology, and he is also the coordinator and principal investigator for the National Survey of Student Engagement Honors Education Consortium research project (2019–2023). Professor Cognard-Black currently serves on the editorial board for the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council and worked for over a decade on the editorial staff for the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, one of the flagship journals of the American Sociological Association.
Cognard-Black’s current area of research interest lies at the intersection of the sociology of higher education and labor market inequality. His work has appeared in several scholarly monographs as well as in journals such as The Sociological Quarterly, the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, and Teorija in Praksa (trans. Theory and Practice).
Education
Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 2004 (Sociology)
M.A., The Ohio State University, 1996 (Sociology)
M.A., Iowa State University, 1994 (English Language and Literature)
B.A., cum laude, Nebraska Wesleyan University, 1992 (Sociology & English)
Areas of Research Specialization
- Social Stratification & Inequality
- Sociology of Education
- Sociology of Work & Occupations
Internal Affiliations
External Affiliations
Awards
- 2023. Research Support Grant, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at the Institute for Social Research
- 2021. Lifetime Fellow of the National Collegiate Honors Council
- 2021. Pandion Haliaetus Professorship for Exemplary Teacher-Scholars, St. Mary's College of Maryland
- 2012. Fulbright Scholar Grant (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia)
Spotlight
- Characteristics of the 21st-Century Honors College
The chapter in this volume presents results from the 2021 Census of U.S. Honors Colleges. We identified all known honors colleges in the United States and conducted an omnibus survey of honors college leaders, and we used the survey data to create one of the most complete statistical profiles of honors colleges to date.
- Forging a More Equitable Path for Honors Education: Advancing Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Diversity, 2021
This article explores racial, ethnic, and socio-economic homogeneity among U.S. honors programs and colleges.
- The Demonstrable Value of Honors Education: New Research Evidence. National Collegiate Honors Council Monograph Series
"The results presented in this volume provide, in a diversity of ways via a diversity of research approaches, the sorts of evidence honors teachers and administrators have long needed." —Dr. Rusty Rushton
