Teaching students is what I enjoy most in life. Serious students represent the future of this nation--and this world. And I feel privileged to have taught so many fine young people over four decades now. I have taught thousands of undergraduates in a range of introductory, social problems, urban sociology, cultural diversity, and racial and ethnic relations courses, as well as hundreds of graduate students in theory, racial and ethnic relations, and urban seminars. In addition, some 34 Ph.D. students have completed their graduate work with me since 1972, including twelve students of color. Another sixteen students have completed their M.A. degrees with me, but did not seek a Ph.D. degree. I have also served on another three dozen or so doctoral and masters committees. And I have supervised more than two dozen undergraduates who completed undergraduate honors theses. 

I have worked hard to involve graduate and undergraduate students in important research projects, for I think even beginners in social research can get into the library and the field, discover new empirical data, and craft new ideas that more established scholars may have avoided or overlooked. In line with this philosophy, I have published with many of my doctoral and masters students and a few of my honors students. The generation of new knowledge and ideas is not just the province of those with established academic credentials.