If you see Dr. Ronald Kwon on campus, help us welcome him to the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences! Dr. Kwon will be joining the Department of Sociology as an assistant professor in Fall 2019. We are featuring him as part of the #NewToCLASS campaign. Follow the hashtag on Instagram to meet our new faculty through these posts before the start of the semester.

Why did you decide to teach at UNT?

One of the draws for me was UNT's commitment to equipping students with the tools to become life-long learners in ways that resonate with a diverse student body. Not only are my colleagues incredibly welcoming, but they were also deeply committed to engaging students to the broader sociology department and campus community. That kind of enthusiasm really stood out during my campus visit and was frankly infectious. I'm really excited to start, grow, and expand as an instructor.

What are you most excited to teach your students?

I am probably most excited to teach research methods. Sociology is an incredibly diverse discipline with a wide umbrella of methodological tools. I'm excited to introduce students to different research designs. As scientific studies have become more diffuse through social media, I hope to challenge students to be more reflective about the strengths and weaknesses of different study designs.

What are you bringing to UNT that is new and different?

I have a fairly diverse research interest and I hope to extend the breadth of course work that are available students at UNT. In the future, I hope to help develop a certificate course in quantitative methods that captures the rapid expansion of tools available to sociologists to study social phenomena. I believe that might include coursework in demographic methods, the generalized linear model, geographic information systems (GIS), and text mining.

What do you tell students or parents of students who are concerned about finding a career after graduation?

I would encourage students to begin thinking about their future careers early. UNT has an extensive number of alumni, many of whom have gone on to do amazing things. Reaching out to alumni and taking advantage of internship opportunities are one of the first steps to figuring out what might interest you as a career, as well as beginning to build social networks in that field. Sociology has a diverse research focus and methods. And so, graduates I've known have gone on to work in very diverse fields that include biomedical sales, institutional research, social media, and social work.