Sharon Warner Methvin, Cameron University

Instructor
Behavioral Sciences
Clark College
1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd
Vancouver, WA 98663
Phone: 360.992.2976
Fax: 360.992.2881

Curriculum Vitae

Mon-Fri 10:00am - 11:00am

I currently hold a position as Instructor in Sociology at Clark College in Vancouver. Prior to moving to Oregon I held a tenured professorship for twelve years in the Department of Politics, Sociology, and Criminal Justice at Cameron University in Oklahoma. I specialize in Family Structure, Social Change, Social Inequality and Cultural Diversity. My present teaching responsibilities include courses in Introductory Sociology and Anthropology and Social Problems and Ethnographic Field Methods. Specialty courses include Women in Poverty, Hominid Evolution and Family in Cross-Cultural Perspective.

In the classroom, I promote collaborative and experiential learning techniques, and the ability to do social science research. My experiential teaching efforts in Introductory Sociology have won state level awards and I have been invited to present papers in experiential learning strategies at the American Sociological Association's annual meetings. Students in my classes can expect to collaborate on projects and to learn research and writing skills.

I am actively involved in field research and am presently studying the socio-demographics of Feral Cat Caregivers and the Heath and Longevity of the Feral Cats in the state of Oregon. Previous research studied family structure and timing of first pregnancy in relation to intergenerational and intragenerational poverty. Other recent field work includes an observational study of the effect of animals on increasing social interaction among nursing home residents. And, because of my earlier training in archaeology, students in my archaeology classes recently participated in several excavations including the excavation of Pleistocene fossil remains that were discovered on campus grounds. The remains have been preserved as a permanent record of the prehistory of Cameron and they provide important scientific information about the paleoecology of Southwest Oklahoma. The permanent exhibit educates the community and students about life in Oklahoma during the Pleistocene epoch.

Each of these field projects provided opportunities for students to learn data gathering and analyses techniques beyond the classroom walls. I have presented papers on my research findings at numerous state, regional and national meetings and they appear as contributions in several publications. The findings from the first phase of my research on poverty are in a book available at the Cameron Bookstore entitled, Women's Choices and the Risk of Poverty: Case Studies of Breaking the Cycle.

I have been an invited speaker to a variety of civic and school groups including the University of Oregon, Portland State, Lewis and Clark, Legislative Public and Expert Testimony, Oregon Dept. of Fish & Wildlife, Oklahoma Law Enforcement Association. I have served on several community boards such as MadElk, a state coalition of diverse special interest groups concerned about the farming of wild elk and an appointee to the Metro Task Force, which studied animal welfare at the Oregon Zoo. I am active in promoting vegetarianism and the intrinsic rights of all beings.

My previous experience includes professional appointments at two museums, extensive training and supervision of volunteers and students on field projects in sociology and anthropology, both in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, and instruction of adult education courses as part of a museum outreach program. In addition, I have been responsible for several special events, to include the Museum of the Great Plains 25th Anniversary Celebration and the American Lung Association first annual Huff-N-Puff Bicycle Classic.

In 1980 I completed a Master of Arts in anthropology at the University of Cincinnati. The thesis research was on the effects of environment and social organization of funerary rituals among societies around the world. In 1988 I completed a second Masters degree at the University of Oklahoma that was interdisciplinary and included the fields of sociology, and social work and psychology. I completed a Ph.D. in cultural and biological anthropology at the University of Oklahoma in 1995. My dissertation research was on women in poverty.