Associate Professor of Sociology Dan Schubert used to be a business major. According to Plato, Schubert was somewhere in an allegorical cave studying the shadows of puppets on a wall when he had an epiphany. He followed a new path and saw the light of sociology after taking a class called “The Aging Worker” as a requirement for his undergraduate degree. A Baltimore native, Schubert went on to graduate from Towson State University with a bachelor’s degree in sociology before pursuing  a master’s degree and PhD from the University of Maryland. 

Other than teaching the First-Year Seminar “Modernity and Its Legacy”, Schubert also teaches classes in sociological theory, gender, health and illness and consumer culture. He has also directed a study abroad program in England as well as accompanied students on a Mosaic to Montserrat.

Early in his First-Year Seminar, Schubert brought up the topic of gender pronouns. When asked about it further  he said, “I’d like to see a world where we don’t have gender pronouns, I don’t know that I would want to get rid of gender any more than I’d want to get rid of race or ethnicity, but I don’t like the gender pronouns, I think it’s a way of boxing people in and informing people’s perspectives of us before they’ve ever even met us.”

When asked what the most rewarding part about being an educator is, he answered, “when you have students who go on to do great things.” Not long ago, he  had the opportunity to present an alumni award to a recent graduate who is currently doing work on women’s rights in Afghanistan.

Schubert believes that sociology expands far outside the classroom and can be a valuable asset to any student. “I feel like sociology is a discipline that you never can turn off, you’re always a sociologist even when you’re not doing sociology… I think in sociology we teach a lot of skills that are very beneficial. Writing, thinking, organizing, critiquing and we also teach an awareness of difference,” he said.