Thomas Vander Ven By Jenny Evans
 Thomas Vander Ven, associate professor of Sociology and Anthropology, receives high marks from students for his interactive style of teaching and classes that are more of a dialogue than a lecture.
“I try and do this with the big classes too,” Vander Ven said. “It’s a big conversation a lot of the time.”
As a kid he was always interested in crime and gravitated towards pop culture images of serial killers on TV. This sparked an early interest in law enforcement, paving the way for the start of his career.
After earning a B.A. in political science from Indiana University and working in federal law enforcement as a background investigator, he went back to school to earn his M.A. in sociology from George Mason University in Virginia. There, he specialized in studying juvenile delinquency and the social control of youth.
“I think sociology is a much better way to understand problems and construct policy to deal with problems,” Vander Ven said. “Rather than thinking a juvenile delinquent has some sort of individual emotional problem that we need to fix, it is better to think of the larger social trends.”
His role model and professor at George Mason, Mark Colvin, was influential in helping shape his career and encouraged him to pursue the study of juvenile delinquency.
“This may sound like faint praise, but he’s a normal person. You can’t say that about a lot of academics,” Vander Ven said of Colvin. “He’s approachable, nice and just a regular guy. I try to model myself in that way; it makes you more accessible. Trying to avoid taking a superior position to students, I’ve learned that from him.”
Currently Vander Ven is studying university alcohol use and abuse and has collected data from three research sites and more than 400 cases. By examining the social organization of drinking, he is attempting to answer the question of why it occurs despite negative consequences.
“The drinking games people play, the way they support each other when things go wrong, that is really my focus right now,” Vander Ven said. “Inevitably things go wrong when people drink to the point of intoxication. People get sick; they get in fights, get arrested, and lock themselves out of their apartments, all these kinds of things. Why did they persist given all these things that go wrong?”
Frank Cullen, his dissertation advisor at George Mason, influenced Vander Ven to involve students in his own research by serving as a good example of how to mentor developing scholars. As a result, Vander Ven has graduate students who assist him in reading drinking stories looking for trends and patterns and in collecting and coding data.
“Frank involved me in his own research very early in my graduate experience,” Vander Ven said. “He also taught me the importance of self-presentation, meeting deadlines, making good on promises, and being a good colleague.”
Outside of the classroom, Vander Ven is the father to a 14-year-old and a 10-year-old and spends much of his time as a youth sports coach. He loves the town of Athens and feels it is a great place to raise kids.
“One of the main things that led me to Athens is that I love a college town, a real college town,” Vander Ven said. “For me, I like an isolated campus where pretty much what people are doing is getting to know each other and socializing. You get to make your own fun.”
He also finds enjoyment when interacting with students of all disciplines when he teaches his favorite class, Contemporary Social Problems. The class focuses on problems related to crime, sexual inequality, poverty, minority groups and other pertinent topics.
“This class is not just for sociology majors; it draws from many disciplines,” Vander Ven said. “It’s a different experience and I have to do more convincing and persuading. For example, I’ll have an accounting major in there and I’ll talk about statistics and how you have to be critical and can’t always trust them.”
He advises new Ohio University students to join clubs within their majors but not to isolate themselves from people outside of their major.
“Students will learn as much from their peers while they are here as they will from their professors,” Vander Ven said. “You can learn from juniors and seniors about which classes to take, about job connections and internships. Use people you know as research.”
Jenny Evans is a writer and designer for the Undergraduate Admissions News. She is a junior magazine journalism major.
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