Professor, Sociology
- Professor Nunn earned her B.A. in Literature and Theater from Whittier College in 1997. She earned her M.A. in Sociology in 2005 and her Ph.D. in Sociology in 2009 from the University of California, San Diego.
Professor Nunn joined the Department of Sociology in 2009. She is the editor of the Critical Issues in American Education book series with Rutgers University Press. She has been recognized with multiple teaching honors including a Faculty Advising Award and a Teaching Excellence Award in addition to being named a Woman of Impact as well as a Changemaker Champion.
Professor Nunn is also an award-winning author. Her book 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty, was awarded the 2020 Scholarly Contributions to Teaching and Learning Award by the American Sociological Association. She has published five books with Rutgers University Press and University of California Press. Her newest book The Burnout-Belonging Connection will be out in 2027. She gives keynotes, talks, and workshops at organizations and institutions across the nation. She has been interviewed by numerous media outlets including KPBS; Inside Higher Ed; the New Books Network; Academic Life; and For Your Institution.
Her scholarship centers on belonging. As a cultural sociologist she draws on sociological theory to articulate how our everyday interactions either offer belonging to others or withhold belonging from them. Professor Nunn lays out strategies and advice for how to be authentic and intentional in our day-in and day-out behaviors to make others feel connection and camaraderie, to feel they are part of our team, group, school, or workplace. As an organizations scholar, Professor Nunn further articulates how policies and practices, including workplace cultures and college campuses, also offer and withhold belonging at a structural level from the people who work there or study there. She has advice for organizational leaders on how to make shifts that foster belonging and inclusion in ways that matter to people, especially those on the margins.
Learn more about Professor Nunn’s current work at drlisanunn.com
Scholarly Work
My scholarship centers on students’ experiences, students’ identities, and students’ overall success and wellbeing. My most recent book, College Belonging, follows first-year college students for two years to see how they navigate their new campus homes and what kinds of obstacles they face to developing a sense of belonging there. As a sociologist, I look closely at communities and how they function. I am a cultural sociologist and an organizations scholar, so I approach research questions about student belonging by looking at what each university is doing with its policies, offerings and structures that foster a particular campus culture at each school.
33 Simple Strategies: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students. 2018. Rutgers University Press.
College Belonging: How First-Year and First-Generation Students Navigate Campus Life. 2021. Rutgers University Press.
My scholarship also includes:
Books
- Education and Society. Textbook for undergraduate Sociology of Education Courses. (co-edited with Thurston Domina, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Andrew Penner, University of California, Irvine; and Benjamin Gibbs, Brigham Young University). Developed in collaboration with the Sociology of Education Association.
- Defining Student Success: The Role of School and Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Articles and Book Chapters (You can download these from my website.)
- “First-Generation College Students” chapter in Education and Society, T. Domina, A. Penner, B. Gibbs and L. Nunn, eds. University of California Press.
- “Implementing Innovative Pedagogy and a Rainbow Curriculum to Expand Learning on Diversity” (co-authored with Steven Sumner, lead author, Sandra Sgoutas-Emch, and Evelyn Kirkley). Insight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching 12(1) 94-119.
- “Girls Get Free Drinks: Undergraduates’ Misunderstandings of Heterosexual Privilege” (lead author with Sandra Sgoutas-Emch, Steven Sumner, and Evelyn Kirkley, co-authors). Journal of Homosexuality 64(12) 1684-1699.
- “Immersive Practices: Dilemmas of Power and Privilege in Community Engagement with Students in a Rural South African Village” (co-authored with J. Michael Williams, lead author). Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education 2(1) Article 5.
- “Wearing a Rainbow Bumper Sticker: Experiential Learning on Homophobia, Heteronormativity and Heterosexual Privilege” (lead author with Sophia C. Bolt, undergraduate co-author). Journal of LGBT Youth 12(3) 276-301.
- “Classrooms as Racialized Spaces: Dynamics of Collaboration, Tension, and Student Attitudes in Urban and Suburban High Schools.” Urban Education 46(6) 1226-1255.