Sociology Faculty
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Full-Time Faculty |
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Sheldon
Helfing, MA, MSW
Professor
sheldon.helfing@canyons.edu
661/362-5884
Mr. Helfing earned his BA in Psychology with a minor in Sociology
from California State University, Northridge. His MA is also
from CSUN, in Education, Educational Psychology, Counseling and
Guidance. His Master of Social Work is from the University of
Washington, Seattle.
Professor Helfing's professional interests include marriage and the family, criminology,
culture and socialization, and social psychology.
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Anne Marenco, Ph.D.
Professor and Department Chair
anne.marenco@canyons.edu
www.canyons.edu/faculty/marencoa
661/362-3685
Anne Marenco has a BS in Family and Consumer Sciences with an emphasis
in Teaching and an
MS in Family and Consumer Sciences with an emphasis in Family Relations/Child Development
from CSUN and an MA and Ph.D. in Sociology with emphases in Aging and
Family from USC.
Dr.
Marenco's sociological interests include relationships, aging,
social psychology,
and research methods and analysis. Her professional interests
include field studies, assessment, and distance education. Her
research interest is marital satisfaction.
Anne is married and
has two children, a son in college and a daughter in graduate school. She
spends her spare time camping, quilting, traveling, and caring for her
parents. |
Mary Valentine, MA
Professor
mary.valentine@canyons.edu
661/362-3687Professor Valentine
earned her BA and MA in sociology at CSUN. She also has a
Mediation Certificate from the Center for Dispute Resolution.
Ms. Valentine's professional
interests include conflict resolution, gender issues, social
movements, educational quality, and immigration.

Mary has spent more than a decade
studying the
Women's Institute, England's oldest and largest women's
organization, made up of more than 250,000 women in over 5,000
villages throughout England. In the process she has
become friends with the WI's most famous members, the Calendar
Girls, who raised more than $2 million for Leukemia research by
posing for a nude calendar. Here Mary is surrounded by the
Calendar Girls at a press conference in London.
Her personal interests include
travel, especially in England, and photography
www.maryvalentinephotography.com. |
Pamela
Williams-Páez,
MA
Professor
pamela.williams-paez@canyons.edu
www.canyons.edu/faculty/paezp/
661/362-5904
Ms. Williams-Páez
earned her MA in Sociology from the University of Washington and her
MA in Theology from Fuller Seminary.
Ms.
Williams-Páez's
research interests include
stratification, social life in public spaces, and
globalization. Her teaching interests include gender, race,
and class; and deviance.
Writers
who have influenced Ms. Williams-Páez
include Howard Becker, June
Jordan, James Baldwin, and Sherman Alexie.
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Graduation 2010




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Part-Time Faculty |
Michelle Bell-Blossom
michelle.bellblossom@canyons.edu
Michelle Bell-Blossom earned her AA
degree in Letters, Arts and Sciences at Antelope Valley College, a
BA degree in Sociology at CSU Bakersfield, and her Master’s in
Sociology and Pan-African Studies at CSU Northridge.
Professor
Blossom’s interests include African American history, race and
ethnicity, social class and stratification, the sociology of
education, marriage and family, dance, film and television, and
hip-hop culture. At CSU Northridge she focused on
the U.S. Educational system for her research in academic attainment
levels and building a positive self-image in African American
children. The title of her thesis is “Dance: A Model for Building a
Positive Self-Image in African American Children.”
In her spare
time, Michelle likes to be with family and friends, travel, teach
dance, counsel students, and attend ballets, concert dances and
Broadway shows. Michelle is an avid supporter of the performing
arts. |
Kim Bonfiglio, MSW
kimberly.bonfiglio@canyons.edu
626/840-0374Kim Bonfiglio earned her BA in Psychology at Carroll College in Montana
and her Master's of Social Work degree at CSU Long Beach.
Professor
Bonfiglio professional interests
include child abuse, foster care, adolescence, child welfare, gangs,
social services, homelessness, domestic violence, psychotherapy,
criminology, and aging/gerontology.
In her spare time, Professor
Bonfiglio spends time with her family camping and traveling. |
Mariana Branda, MA
mariana.branda@canyons.edu
Ms. Branda earned her BA
and MA in Sociology with an emphasis in social psychology from CSUN
Professor Branda's
professional interests include distance learning development,
qualitative methods, culture, gender/class/race relations, social
psychology, and, globalization. She teaches online courses for
College of the Canyons from her home in Argentina.
Mariana
spends her spare time with
her family, reading, and traveling. |
Natalie Buriel
natalie.buriel@canyons.edu
Natalie Buriel earned her BA in Sociology with an emphasis in Family
Studies at the University of New Mexico and her Master’s in Social
Work degree at New Mexico Highlands University.
In addition to teaching Sociology Classes, Professor Buriel has also
taught classes for older adults through the Continuing Education
Department at COC. She has a special interest in older adults and
in providing services to those afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease or
a related dementia. She currently is employed by the Alzheimer’s
Association and serves on the Professional Advisory Committee of the
Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center.
Natalie enjoys spending time with her family and friends, hiking,
and training toward earning her black belt in Tae Kwon Do when she
is not working. |
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Kathryn Coleman.
MA
kathryn.coleman@canyons.edu

Kathryn Coleman earned
her BA in Sociology from UC Santa Barbara and her MA in Sociology at
CSUN.
Professor Coleman’s
sociological interests include sex and gender, race and class, and
deviance. At UCSB she focused on the American prison system for her
research in race and class, and at CSUN she wrote her thesis on the
American prison system, focusing on recidivism among the criminally
labeled. The title of her thesis is "The American Prison System:
Institutional and Social Factors Contributing to Recidivism." In
this project, she was able to further explore her main sociological
interests by focusing on the general prison population and the
social and institutional factors which generate and propagate high
recidivism rates among criminalized individuals in the United
States.
In her spare time, Ms.
Coleman enjoys traveling. |
Tracie Gardner, MA
tracie.gardner@canyons.edu
Ms. Gardner earned her BA
in Sociology with a minor in Religious Studies and her MA in
Sociology from East Carolina University.
Ms. Gardner's teaching
interests include social problems, women's studies, crime, research
methods, and religion. In addition to teaching at COC, she teaches
Sociology at CSU Northridge and works with the California Faculty
Association. Ms. Gardner is also a first year student at
Southwestern Law School. |
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Tyler
P. Haugen, MA
Tyler.Haugen@canyons.edu
www.canyons.edu/faculty/haugent
Professor Haugen holds a
BA and MA in sociology from California State University,
Northridge. His areas of interest include sex and gender, the
sociology of work & organizations, and social research methods.
He most enjoys making sociology relevant for everyone and
constantly is reinvigorated through the sociological imagination.
Mr. Haugen was named the top graduate student in sociology for
California by the California Sociological Association in 2004 and
also was awarded "Outstanding Graduate Student" for his
scholarship at CSUN. Mr. Haugen enjoys a healthy balance of
teaching with a professional career as a Human Resources Manager
with one of the most iconic brands in the U.S. This balance allows
him to stay in touch with “corporate America” while applying his
knowledge of sociology to his everyday work.
In his spare time, Mr.
Haugen is an avid supporter of the arts (especially theater) and
loves to travel all over the world with his husband.
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Mitra Hoshiar, MA
mitra.hoshiar@canyons.edu
www.canyons.edu/faculty/hoshiarm
Mitra Hoshiar
earned her BA in Social Sciences with a minor in Sociology
from Tehran University, Iran. She also has an MA in Sociology
from California State University, Northridge.
Professor Hoshiar has taught a
variety of sociology courses, including Introduction to
Sociology, Chicano/a Culture, the Changing Family, Social
Problems, Multiculturalism in the United States, Sociology of
Deviance, Crime and Social Control, Sociology of Change,
Sociological Analysis, Society and Personality, Sociology of
Aging, and Introduction to Women's Studies. Her interests lie
mainly in social issues having to do with culture, gender, race,
ethnicity, immigration, and political sociology. One of the
main reasons that she enjoys teaching sociology is to help
students see the world in a different way and to help them
become critical thinkers about the world.
In her spare time,
Mitra reads and loves to travel all over the world.
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Jaye Houston, Ph.D.
jaye.houston@canyons.edu
In 1995, Dr. Houston earned
her BA degree in Religion with a minor in Global Peace and Security
at UCSB. In 1998 she was
awarded a certificate in Women’s Studies and an MA degree in
Religion from The Florida State University. In 2006, she
completed a doctoral degree at Claremont Graduate University in
Women Studies in Religion. Her dissertation field research
examined the intergenerational relationship between female Holocaust
survivors and their granddaughters--the third generation.
Dr.
Houston's interdisciplinary academic foci are sociology of religion,
self and society, women’s studies, comparative genocides, and field
research. |
Austin Im
austin.im@canyons.edu
Professor Im received BA in
Sociology from UC Irvine and his MA in Sociology from CSU Fullerton
with an emphasis in Race and Ethnicity. His professional
interests include Race and Ethnicity, Multiculturalism,
Majority-Minority Relations, Asian American Studies, Popular Culture,
and Marriage and Family.
Austin's personal interests include spending
time with family, movies (80s and 90s film buff), sports, and
traveling. |
Dominic Little
dominic.little@canyons.edu |

Arman Mgerian
armanmg@hotmail.com
http://faculty.piercecollege.edu/mgeryaa/
Mr. Mgerian
earned his M.A. and B.A from CSUN in the field of Sociology with a
specialization in Criminology. Upon graduation from graduate
school, he was hired to teach Sociology and has been doing so since
fall 2005.
Professor Mgerian has taught several courses including Introduction
to Sociology, Social Problems, Marriage and Family, Deviance, and
Social Psychology. He am currently working on a proposition for a
new course in the Sociology of Medicine at Pierce College.
Arman is happily married and awaiting a late December (2009) arrival
of his first child. He love to travel and is a black belt in the
art of Judo, though he has been idle since 2007. |
Gayle Pulliam
gayle.pulliam@canyons.edu
www.canyons.edu/faculty/pulliamg
Gayle Pulliam graduated
from College of the Canyons. She has a BA in Sociology from
California State University, Northridge and will be completing her MA in Sociology at CSUN this
semester. Ms. Pulliam's expertise is in Criminology, Deviance,
Gangs, and Social Problems. She has worked as a tutor and mentor for
at risk adolescents, including active gang members.
Gayle's objective in teaching Sociology is to get students to see
their world through new eyes. If she can show them how often we are
critical, judgmental, and prejudiced and can help them change their
perspective she feels successful.
Although Gayle loves
teaching she spends her spare time with her family, which includes
three Chihuahuas. |
Robert Wonser, MA
robert.wonser@canyons.edu
http://www.canyons.edu/faculty/wonserr/
Professor Wonser earned his B.S. in Business Administration with an
option in Marketing and his M.A. in Sociology from CSUN. His
research interests include culture, mass media, subcultures, popular
culture, youth culture, consumerism, social stratification,
criminology, and social psychology. |
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