Professor Emerita
1958 – 2023
Cindy A. Stearns, Professor Emerita in Sociology, received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. She came to SSU as assistant professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies (then Women's Studies) Department After sixteen years in WGS, including service as department chair, she joined the Sociology Department in 2007. Before arriving at SSU, Dr. Stearns taught at the University of Missouri and was a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellow in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley.
Dr. Stearns’ employed qualitative methods to study women’s experience of breastfeeding, the workers who support breastfeeding and the social context for breastfeeding in the U.S. In addition, she conducted research on the changing nature of medical work, physician interactions with patients, gender issues in jails, and other topics.
Dr. Stearns taught courses on the sociology of the body, the sociology of reproduction, healthcare & illness, childhood & adolescence, and research methods, as well as other topics. As the lead instructor for SOCI 300 (Sociological Research Methods), she made immeasurable contributions to the ways in which current SOCI 300 instructors conceive of and teach key aspects of research design. Dr. Stearns was a true inspiration to many SSU students and was nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award.