Daedalian sits down with LCC Social Sciences Professor, Aliza Robison to talk about the debut of The Sociological POV. This innovative podcast emerges from the vibrant discussions led by Aliza while teaching sociology and anthropology. She emphasizes the importance of perspective-taking and critical discussions, which serve as foundational elements in both her teaching and the forthcoming podcast. By facilitating an exploration of current events through diverse viewpoints, we aim to foster a deeper understanding of the complexities inherent in our societal interactions. The Sociological POV debuts on LCC Connect, Tuesday, February 3rd at 2 pm.

Podcast: The Sociological POV

Website: LCC Social Sciences

This is Daedalian. I'm the general manager for LCC Connect, and today's episode features a conversation with Eliza Robison, an adjunct professor at Lansing Community College who has been teaching sociology and anthropology for the past 13 years.

Eliza is someone who thrives on classroom discussion, the kind of conversations that get students thinking, questioning, and seeing the world from new perspectives. Those conversations are also what inspired her brand new podcast, the Sociological pov.

Born directly from lively, insightful discussions in her classes, the show explores current events and social issues through multiple perspectives, unpacking the cultural and social forces shaping our everyday lives. The Sociological POV makes its debut on LCC Connect February 4th.

And now let's go behind the scenes to find out what's happening behind the connection. How long you been working here? It's been about 13 years, right?

It's been at least 13 years because I started teaching a month after my first child was born and she is 14 now.

Do you find you stay excited about what you do?

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. What keeps you excited?

Planning my classes to be thought provoking and then seeing in action if they are thought provoking for students. Like the readings that I choose, the topics that we go over, the discussions we have in class are all something I think about.

Like, I want them to be exciting for the students, but also something that they're like, yeah, oh, yeah. Now I get that concept.

And it's got to be great each and every time. I mean, you get this new set of students each time.

I guess if I was a teacher, an instructor, a professor, I would very much look at it the way I used to look at it when I'd go to school. I mean, it was like every semester it was something completely new.

And so you've got like this new group of minds to work with and talk with and teach. It's very cool. Listeners might not always know what sociology is.

How does it show up in everyday life to explain it to a listener who's not familiar with sociology?

Okay. And I'm going to also explain anthropology, as they are, to me, inseparable. Sociology and anthropology are all around you.

The relationships you have with people are part of a larger social structure. And the best example I can give of this is your family.

So you are born into a family and you learn what role you have and the role the other people in your family have. And there are terms for this obviously sister, brother, mother, father. And you learn the rules that go along with that, the norms. Right.

And the beliefs about that. And that's all the cultural part. Right. And then you behave according to those rules and norms within the social structure that you exist in.

And those vary depending on the culture that you're in. Subculture doesn't have to be just like the United States has one culture. Obviously there's many, many different cultural groups within one country.

So yeah, we're constantly learning, like I said, you start as a baby or even before that, learning things that teach you what's right, what's wrong, and how to behave based on those beliefs and how you behave in interactions with other people. So literally everything you're doing after you wake up is culture and society influencing you.

Right. And somewhat related to that because you're talking about the behaviors you learn in your family.

I always think about when you first start to date a significant other and you go to their parents house for the very first time, you're on your best behavior.

And then very often I have found that that family is completely different than I anticipated and may have like a more relaxed dinner atmosphere or vibe than min, which my family is very relaxed. So it just always throws me off. You had said in there that you kind of find that sociology and anthropology are kind of the same.

So what is the difference then?

Well, one is you would define it as the language, the actions. So what's normal behavior that you learn as normal behavior? The ideas, all of the things that you learn.

And then the society or the social stuff is the relationships you have with other people.

So in sociology you would learn more about like how you're connected to other people politically, economically, what's a social network and how does that play into your life? Where in anthropology you would learn about the culture that comes with all those things?

So social networks, they've always been important who you know, Right? Always been super important. But in each culture they're different.

You manipulate them differently, you access them differently, you understand them differently. So the culture is what you learn, the part of it that you learn. And to me they're inseparable.

I teach a lot of social structure ideas in anthropology classes and in sociology, I teach a lot of cultural stuff as well because I see them as kind of an inseparable package. But some people, I think, would argue that they're easily separated more than me.

You seem to really enjoy what you do. Just based on this conversation and the conversation that we've had before. When is it that you, like, in life, kind of decided, you know what?

This is the path I want to follow.

Oh, my goodness. So I took an anthropology class. It was suggested by my biology teacher. I took a biology class the first semester semester in college at msu.

So I thought I wanted to become a doctor, but when I took chemistry, it was really hard for me. And she said, take an anthropology class. So I did.

And for someone like me who didn't grow up with a clear belief system provided to me, I hope that explains it. Anthropology helped me understand the world in a way I hadn't understood.

It helps me understand why people do the things that they do, why we have different ideas of right and wrong. So that was easy for me right away to say, this is something really important to me. And then, honestly, I didn't think I'd end up teaching.

I wanted to do research. But then I had my first child with my husband while he wasn't my husband. And then we ended up getting married, buying a farm, all within one year.

So that was a crazy year. We got married, had a baby, bought a farm. Oh, also, I got this job at LCC as like, a let's see how this goes. And I love teaching.

And so it soon became something like, well, this is something I'll do while I raise my children. It works great being an adjunct. And we'll see after this. We'll see if I end up pursuing this more full time.

I also have a lot of interest in starting my own school, but education definitely is really important to me.

Like I said, you can tell that you really enjoy what you do. The passion that you have for it also comes out on the microphone. And that would be my next thing is I'm kind of curious.

We kind of got an idea of what got you towards anthropology and teaching, of course. But as far as the podcast goes, was there a point where something happened where it clicked and you went, you know what?

This would make a great podcast.

I think I already had an idea in my mind, like, oh, it'd be cool to start something like that, because I think students would be interested in that. I think it could be a way to keep students engaged outside the classroom. Learning is fun. You know, that old saying.

And also this subject in particular is really important in the world today. And I think students have a lot of fun learning it.

But in that class in particular, where it started, sometimes I get these really Honest, open classes where a significant number of them want to be honest and open about life. And again, reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, I think stirs stuff up in people. And we have just really good discussions.

And at some point, either I or one of the students said something about it and a lot of them were like, yes, let's do it. And it was snowballed from there.

The podcast is called the Sociological POV. February 4th, it'll debut on LCC Connect. But nobody. It's not out there yet. So how would you describe the show itself? The podcast?

Not so much the class. How would you describe the podcast? As somebody who's never heard it before.

I would say it's having perspectives on a certain topic, trying to help others take those perspectives and maybe be open minded to them. I intentionally am looking for students that have different ideas than even the small group that we'll meet with.

I want people to think differently, to sit down and talk with people that might think differently from themselves and so other students can hear that. So it's not just the topic necessarily that we're covering, it's the interaction that we're having at a college.

And I think that's an important thing about college, is to promote those ideas.

To see other people's viewpoints.

Yes.

Yeah. Therein lies the POV point of view.

Yes.

So why is perspective taking so central to sociology?

You will not be a good sociologist or anthropologist if you cannot take. It's called cultural relativism. That's the term.

And it's an essential tool in those fields where you take your foundational beliefs all the way to your opinions, you set them aside and you look at somebody else who's different from you or a cultural group that's different from you and see their way of living their beliefs as equally valid to yours. I always say to my students, it's not that you're wrong in anything. We all have our opinions and beliefs. I certainly do.

But if I'm gonna understand why people do things that are different from me, if I still have my ideas about what's right and wrong, I'm not gonna fully understand them. I need to put those aside and understand from their perspective completely.

I mean, you can never be full 100%, but you can do a pretty good job by working on that, I think. And so we practice that through the whole semester, not debating whether something's right or wrong. Although we do do that sometimes just for fun.

But most of the time it's okay. Let's try and understand why a culture was doing this at this point in time, or why this culture is doing this now, or why those questions?

I would imagine that the conversations have to get uncomfortable from time to time. Do you tend to try to be almost a moderator and keep your own personal opinion out of that situation?

Yes, definitely.

Yeah. So when somebody listens to this, what are you kind of hoping they take away from this? Do you want them to feel that little bit of that discomfort?

Do you want curiosity, understanding, all of it?

Sure.

What I would want most for them to come out of it with is new thoughts in their mind, new ideas about the world, new way of thinking about things that they didn't have before. And maybe that's uncomfortable for me. It's curious for me. I feel curious about why are these things happening?

Curiosity is why we learn, right?

Yeah.

We got into a discussion about this on another podcast and the person hadn't heard. They'd heard the term curiosity killed the cat. And I mentioned, because my grandma used to always say, and satisfaction brought him back.

And I've always been like, yeah, there's some truth to that because eventually you're going to learn something new because of the curiosity. So how do you decide what topics or events you're going to talk about on the podcast?

So I got student input at the end of last semester for the upcoming podcasts we're going to record. So those are some of the ideas. Some of them I just, I read about something in the news. I'm like, that'd be fun.

Maybe I try it out in class, see the response I get, and it would be good. Something with a small group. Yeah, just stuff I think about. Yeah. Okay.

There's three different classes you teach here at lcc, is that right? Introduction to Sociology, Cultural Anthropology and Food Sustainability. Now, those are where you pull your students from. Right.

So how does each of the disciplines bring. What do they bring to the conversation?

So the Intro to Soc class, you get a lot more diversity in academic backgrounds. So because it's required for so many degrees here, you get people from all over taking it.

I just need this class, which is good, because in the end you get a lot of people that are like, yeah. And I actually really like talking about this stuff.

So you get people that weren't going into it because they were already interested in it, but then they start getting interested in it.

And then the anthropology classes, the food and sustainability one, which is actually next fall gonna be called Food, Culture and Environment, are people that typically take it because they're already like, oh, I wanna Learn more about humans. So, I mean, I think as things have been shifting around here, we're getting a little bit more of like, I'm just taking this because I need it.

But typically they come in knowing, like, you're supposed to be open minded, you're supposed to be like, these expectations are already kind of there. I think that would be the difference.

Between the classes where you're ending actually leads into the next question I want to ask. But before we get to that, you'd mentioned that the name change was going to be food, culture and environment. Why the name change?

Well, one would be sustainability is kind of like played out the term. And we actually have always talked about that in the class. Like, why are we using this term? How is it politically leveraging people?

Okay.

And I think as many terms that are picked up politically or by, you know, companies that use them to sell products, they get played out. And so now I see that as kind of something that's been played out and students get that and they're kind of bored of it.

So I think the new title is more accurate description of the foundational ideas in the class because I use this perspective called the Cultural Ecological perspective. It's a Marxist perspective. He's got really interesting ideas on this stuff. And I teach the students that from the get go.

And so we look at everything as kind of everything in culture as a product of our relationship with the environment and the resources we have access to.

Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. So what makes anthropology and sociology classes such good spaces for discussion and debate?

Well, I think they are sciences.

Right.

They're not like the hard sciences where you can show concrete evidence. Concrete evidence? Yep. Although, I mean, we do studies as best we can that prove that patterns exist.

We don't know always if the correlation is, you know, the relationship is a causal one. But we, you know, try and control for all the variables. But I mean, that's kind of like an asterisk on science.

But science is about testing what you believe to be true. Right. And so debate is an important part of that, but also providing evidence.

So students, I encourage them as we go through the whole class to develop that skill.

And I tell them I think this is even more important than the, you know, like, define this term or this theory because it's a skill you could, will use or hopefully need to have through your life is this ability to communicate clearly. Here is why I think this. I'm open to new ideas. I'm listening to, to you and understanding what you're saying.

And I'M in my mind going to compare and think about that with what I already understand and then I can come up with a new or revised conclusion. And it's fun to think about humans. So these classes are great to use science and the debate that comes with science, but also talk about humans.

And not just, I mean, that's the first thing you learn in sociology classes. We all have assumptions, but this isn't about just making assumptions.

This is about actually looking at what we know to be true and trying to understand without your preconceived ideas influencing everything. Listen, to understand better is the key point to that.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Are you kind of hoping your students are going to gain that same concept when they get on the microphone for your podcast, or is there something more that you're hoping that they'll gain out of coming into a recording studio and talking on a microphone versus the classroom?

Yeah, the continue it and make it exciting. Like I mentioned before, I think look at, we can go outside of the classroom and we can continue learning with each other.

Practicing cultural relativism, practicing being open minded and being comfortable with being wrong sometimes or, you know, just being like, maybe, I don't know, like students want to know answers and be right on stuff. Not just students, but everybody does. So we can practice that.

And I try and choose students that are already working on that so that we can show that here.

Yeah, I would say that, you know, doing the podcast also kind of helps them to extend beyond, like you said, the classroom, but also to help them realize, look, I don't have to keep this just in the classroom. I can bring it out to public and try to gain other people's perspectives and still maintain my own position as well. Respectfully is the key there.

So you've talked about some of the skills that you hope that your class gives the students as well as the podcast. In your description, you talked about things like perspective taking, listening to understand, communicating abstract ideas.

Why are these skills so important in today's society?

Well, we live in a society that individualism is super important, the individual having rights, and we live in a democratic republic.

So on one hand you've got this idea of the individual being able to advocate for themselves, which all those things you just mentioned, those skills I think are important in being able to advocate for yourself. And I teach that in class. Like, this is why we communicate. This is why you stay on top of listening about what is expected of you.

Because you want to be able to advocate for yourself at any point in your life.

Right.

Goes Way outside of the classroom.

Right, Right.

You want to be able to read thoroughly the directions. I know. Read the syllabus, you know, so that you know what rights you have. Right. What expectations you're up against.

And if you don't like them, you communicate them. But not after the fact before. Right. And this is comfortable ground to do that in a community college. Right.

Where the teacher is available to you and we can talk about that. But those skills go way beyond the classroom. And then the democratic republic, of course, is we have to work on this stuff together all the time.

We can't let that slack. So cooperation is key.

We all can have opinions and beliefs, but nothing is going to work if we just sit and force those ideas, like you're saying before the respectful conversations that we work on here. Being able to listen, to understand and cooperate, ultimately, I think is a key skill.

Right. You had mentioned the word, or you had said the word patterns earlier. When you said it, I thought, yes, patterns are patterns.

And usually in a society, you're going to see it pretty much stay there all the time. But they are malleable. They can be changed. So that's key. Yeah.

Is there a common assumption about society or culture that you love challenging your students with? Yes, that one right there.

Oh, that is one. Yeah. So I often use the metaphor of the Matrix. I use the Matrix all the time.

And sometimes I'll feel like Morpheus when he's like, you think that's air you're breathing? You know that feeling? So, yeah, I have a lot of fun doing that.

I think my favorite one is kind of what I had mentioned before, just the beliefs with cultural relativism, the beliefs you have.

Instead of, like, coming into this class to unpack them and share them with everyone, it's like, let's set those aside and have a real sincere effort to understand why people are different from you. And maybe that shapes how you think about the world. And that's great.

Something I repeat constantly to the students is from Hamlet, nothing is either good or bad. Thinking makes it so. And for me, that's an important line. For me, that's helped me think about the world. But the thinking begins to develop.

Create your right and wrong.

I think at the beginning of the semester, students are sometimes very uncomfortable with all of that, especially with, like you mentioned, there's a lot of topics that are uncomfortable to discuss. But by midway through the semester, I think they're a lot more used to it. And they're like, yeah, okay, I can understand.

I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. I'm like, great, we're definitely getting somewhere.

Do you find that typically over a semester, the temperament of students kind of changes?

Do you see that change where they may have been a little more intolerant in the beginning, but they become more tolerant and more receptive to other people?

I think so.

Typically, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's cool. So when you're watching news or scrolling media, is it hard for you to stay out of sociologist mode?

Like, do you really examine it and go.

Yeah. I mean, to the detriment of my family? I am constantly. I mean, I tell my. I'm honest with my students. I constantly am thinking this way.

It's actually difficult for me sometimes because I am so analytical about everything.

Well, we're getting near the end here, and I wanted to bring up the fact that you're a dog lover. So what is it about dogs that sociology can't quite explain but still feels universally true?

Hmm. That a simple, loving relationship is a really important part of being alive.

Yeah. I was thinking unconditional love. They excel at that. Humans do not do that so well.

They do. That's true. That's very true.

Eliza Robinson, thanks so much for coming in.

I do have one more question for you before we wrap up, but before we do that, I want to thank you for joining me in the studio and giving us an inside look at the Sociological pov. It's exciting to see the classroom conversation actually take place here at LCC Connect in this studio.

I am excited about this, and I am so happy you reached out to me to start this podcast. It's called the Sociological POV. It's going to debut on February 4th on LCC Connect.

You can listen at lccconnect.com or wherever you get your podcast. Now, the very last question of the day. I can't tell you what it is because I don't know myself. I'm already find out. Are you ready?

It's the rando question of the day. If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

Oh, my gosh. I don't know. I think I've thought of this before and answered. To fly.

To fly. Where would you fly off to first?

The mountains.

The mountains? Yeah. You spent some time in Colorado, didn't you?

I lived in Montana.

Montana. Was it okay?

Yes. Yeah.

And I want to just say thank you so much for being supportive of this podcast, working with me through all of the trials of it, but I really appreciate it and I'm happy where it's going.

I'm excited about it, and I can't wait to see what we've got in store.

Yeah, thank you.

If you had to explain what you do for a living using only emojis, what three would you choose?

The faces that are, like, kooky, like, confused, but also, you know, when I brow up kind of thing, maybe a shrug.