Will Tyson
Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology
Will Tyson’s involvement in the Duke community isn’t surprising for someone who says he’s “always been interested in people and how people interact with each other.” He was involved in the Graduate and Professional Student Council (GPSC) for five years and was a Resident Advisor and an Area Coordinator, activities which no doubt afforded him many opportunities to exercise his sociological imagination.
Will came to Duke in 1998, fresh from getting his B.A. in sociology and psychology from Wake Forest University. He settled on sociology for his study of people and their interactions, he says, because he “liked the sociological perspective more and it fit my personal outlook on the world.” He chose Duke because “Duke Sociology is a highly respected program, and the university has a lot of resources. I’m a lifelong North Carolinian,” explains Will, a native of Tarboro, “and I’m familiar with the Triangle area. Coming to Duke allowed me to maintain my North Carolina roots and friendships from Wake Forest.”
His dissertation combines all of his academic interests, which he describes as “primarily in issues surrounding race, gender, and higher education.” Working with Ken Spenner and Claudia Buchmann from Sociology and with Anita-Yvonne Bryant from Counseling and Psychological Services on the Campus Life and Learning Project, Will is “studying structural and psychological factors that predict interracial friendship during the freshman year of college. Structural factors include the likelihood of interracial interaction on campus and in residence halls. Psychological factors are the similarity between a student and others of his or her race in their expectations for college.” He says he has been interested in the social distance between black and white women since he was an undergraduate, but he “did not have the data to study it nor is there a great deal of research on the topic. The Campus Life and Learning Project allows me to study social networks within a diverse group of individuals in a highly structured setting.”
Will became involved with student government (the Graduate and Professional Student Council) his first year here because he “had very few social outlets when I arrived in grad school. Plus, I was involved in undergrad, so I was familiar with campus leadership and campus bureaucracy….I’ve enjoyed myself at Duke because I took the time to invest myself in the Duke community,” he says. “I care about what happens where I live. Many graduate students don’t feel that way. Some only feel an identity as a Duke student through the men’s basketball team. I feel like a member of the Duke University community. This community involvement has also helped me to build close friendships and casual friendships with other graduate and professional students from outside Sociology. These relationships have been invaluable to my graduate school experience. I can look back on my time here and say I enjoyed it.”
The part of his Duke experience he’ll value most, however, is “giving birth to my dissertation. This will be the most grueling thing I’ll do before starting my career as a professor. Hopefully it will only be a nine-month process. I will value the knowledge that I will carry into my career from observing faculty in my department and others around the university. I have a greater understanding of how faculty fit into the larger institution. Other than that I’ll remember the friends I’ve made along the way because several of those friends will always be part of my life.” Will wants to continue research in the university setting once he graduates and teach sociology to undergraduates.
Kenneth Spenner
Professor, Sociology
I have known Will since he came to Duke but have only worked closely with him for the past three years on our Campus Life and Learning Project. This is a multi-year panel study that follows several Duke cohorts and investigates educational experiences and academic performance.
Will has been an important part of our Project team, not only for his intellectual contributions but also for his extensive knowledge and experiences in residential and extracurricular areas of Duke undergraduate life. His dissertation on the racial composition of undergraduate friendship networks promises to make an important contribution to our understanding how this aspect of diversity forms and evolves during the early undergraduate years.
(This profile originally appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of The GRIND.)