To see the connection, Valocchi encourages his students to become more closely involved with the people they study. Research can be a very alienating experience. I encourage my students to do more qualitative interviewing of a small group of people so a closer connection between the subject and the object of the research can be made. I want my students to look at, and not simply understand in the abstract, the different theories of power in society, understand them, and then apply them in some context. Students then produce an ethnography of their own.
Students go and spend time with people different from themselves.
They develop a relationship with their subjects so the final project becomes both personal and sociological. In his own research, Valocchi has put a personal face on Hartford. As a member of the Hartford Studies Project, an interdisciplinary research and teaching effort of the College that explores Hartford's past in relation to its present, Valocchi compiled oral histories of city residents who grew up during the Great Depression. He is also examining the gay liberation movement, an outgrowth of his ongoing research into social movements, for which he received a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship last year. Bringing life to the classroom Sociology has become a very personal pursuit for Valocchi's students.