Sociology Students Put Learning into Practice to Create Social Change

Students in this year’s Community Based Praxis Half Block course conducted real, hands-on, important work for local organizations and agencies, where they analyzed and sorted data, and are now finalizing written reports to submit to their community partners.

The course, developed and taught by Dr. Gail Murphy-Geiss, CC Professor and Chair of the Sociology Department, is designed to put sociology into practice and give students the chance to do sociological work with a community, movement, or local organization to create social change.

The eight students in the class worked on four different projects with local organizations and agencies: Planned Parenthood of the Rockies, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of the Pikes Peak Region, the Colorado Judicial Branch Recovery Court, and the Colorado Judicial Branch Dependency and Neglect Court.

The students were prepared to do this important work by taking prior Sociology courses and demonstrating adequate writing and quantitative analysis skills. Murphy-Geiss introduced students to their partner organizations on the first day of the Half Block and, after getting instructions and data from the community partners, the students got to work.

Anya Jones ’25 and Elena Flask ’26 worked on a project for Planned Parenthood, where they analyzed race, age, and rural versus urban demographics to determine who uses the Planned Parenthood app and how often. Additionally, this data helps Planned Parenthood understand what services people use the app for, such as for birth control, emergency contraception, or a UTI.

“This experience was definitely unlike anything I’ve done before,” says Jones, a Sociology major and Creative Writing minor. “I learned that there are dozens of meaningful questions born from a seemingly simple research question. There are so many things you can ask, so many directions of analysis, and so many approaches to data management. There are also really powerful tools at everyone’s disposal, and learning how to use them is the future of research.” 

Tim Smith ’25 and Emma Langas ’25 did a project for CASA, analyzing data to help them better understand which children do or do not get assigned a CASA advocate. The organization gave Langas and Smith data about their case demographics, including race, number of children, reasoning for CASA consideration, if the child received a CASA, and the logs of and reasons why cases did not receive a CASA.

“The experience was extremely engaging, and I am glad that I have had the privilege to learn about research design and can help CASA make their process easier in the future,” Langas says. “I hope through this project that we can set up a good foundation for future students taking this Half Block to perform more extensive analysis and help them even more. CASA is such an amazing foundation that is helping so many children, and I am glad I can help them too.”

Langas is a Sociology major and Creative Writing and Mathematics minor. She took the Half Block because she wanted to have hands-on research experience before she starts her thesis next year. Additionally, she wanted to further her understanding of sociological research design. She says that both of these goals were achieved, and more.

“This project helped me feel more connected to the Colorado Springs community,” Langas says. “Seeing what [CASA does], and the lengths they will go to make sure children are connected to their family or a home, was so beautiful, and it made me truly understand the power of community. I also learned how to think on my feet, and pivot from my original ideas of a project to a new idea that is still beneficial to the larger community.”

Maren Snow ’25 and Charlotte Combe ’26 did a project for the Colorado Judicial Branch Recovery Court where they analyzed demographics such as race, gender, and age to determine who is and who isn’t successful in the program. They also helped edit orientation materials.

Murphy-Geiss typically gets the exact research questions from the partner organizations in the late fall but begins recruiting students in the late spring and early fall based on their performance in her Sociological Research Design class. Once she has adequate students and enough information on the projects, she assembles the teams, making sure at least one student in each group has taken the advanced Quantitative Research Methods class. Students who are concentrating on Health and Society within the Sociology major are given priority for health-related projects such as Planned Parenthood or Recovery Court.

This course started about 14 years ago, when Duncan Forbes ’09 was working at Planned Parenthood of the Rockies and contacted Murphy-Geiss to ask if she had any students who could run numbers for them, assessing the outcomes for students who took their sex education curriculum through the schools across the region.

“I agreed, and it has been an annual partnership ever since,” Murphy-Geiss says. “We did quite a few years working with that same data, analyzing who knew the most coming in by age, race, gender, and more, and then who learned the material by the same, and also by region and length of the class. After Planned Parenthood had learned all they could from that project, they asked if we could do other research, so for the last four years, we have done different projects each year.”

A few years after the course’s initiation, several students did a senior thesis project based on data available to them through their volunteer work in the Dependency and Neglect Court, working with Judge Timothy Schutz. The students introduced Schutz and Murphy-Geiss, who then began looking at data surrounding racial differences in outcomes for kids going through that court. 

“We did that for seven years and are now shifting to examination of a new pilot program that looks more holistically at the problems a family might have, perhaps related to the dependency and neglect case – perhaps substance abuse, mental health issues, homelessness, and so on,” Murphy-Geiss says. “This is a brand-new program, so the students this year have identified the variables and set up the database, preparing the court to collect the data they need to assess the program.”

This year, Maya Elias ’25 and Yuki Yang ’25 worked on a project for this new program linked to the Colorado Judicial Branch Dependency and Neglect Court. They compared the new pilot program to the traditional approach for processing children by analyzing data about the removal, placement, and reunion of children processed through the programs. 

The course connected with the Recovery Court after the head of that court learned about the work Murphy-Geiss and her students were doing with the Dependency and Neglect Court and have now worked together for about four years.

“Our work with CASA, new this year, grew out of findings in the Dependency and Neglect Court data, regarding racial differences in child outcomes,” Murphy-Geiss says. “They have some of the data we might need for their specific questions, so this year, students are working with those data, but they are also identifying other variables of interest and setting up a data base for fuller analysis next year.”

This class is a community-engaged learning course (CEL), incorporating experiential education that promotes student learning while simultaneously and equitably addressing community needs.

Although the students lead the projects, Murphy-Geiss is by their side offering guidance and assistance. She checks in with students almost every day and meets with them to discuss what analyses to run. Prior to submitting their final reports to the partner organizations, students must submit drafts to Murphy-Geiss, who provides feedback.

“Because they have to be professional-level reports, it often takes two to three drafts, beyond the first one submitted,” Murphy-Geiss says.

While the students started the projects during Half Block, they continued working on them through Blocks 5 and 6. They are now preparing their final reports to submit to the partner organizations.