Western Sociology lecturer wins best dissertation award

Gabriel, a Sociology lecturer at Western, received the Constance Coiner Award for Best Dissertation for her work titled, “Manufacturing Precarity: A Case Study of the Grain Processing Corporation (GPC)/United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 86D Lockout in Muscatine, Iowa.”

Judges for the award found Gabriel’s work to be “brilliant” and “a fascinating and useful take on how job loss and re-employment works in the Heartland.”

One judge summed up Gabriel’s dissertation as: “This is a classic tale of blue-collar workers being dominated by the power of the owning class, but in this case the workers held onto their dignity and, in the long run, their skills and their rewarding productive labor.”

Gabriel received her B.A. and M.A. from the University of Iowa and the University of Nebraska, respectively. She recently received her Ph.D. from Colorado State University, where she also worked as a graduate student instructor. Gabriel now teaches courses such as “Sociological Theory” and “Qualitative Research Methods,” among others, in Western’s Sociology program.

More information about Gabriel’s dissertation can be found on the WCSA website.