Dr. Ken Spring, Department Chair, is an AssociateProfessor of Sociology. He holds an M.A. from the University of Toledo and a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. His current research focuses on popular culture specializing in music "scene" formation, implementing production and consumption models of culture. Dr. Spring has been interviewed for several documentaries discussing various aspects of culture which have aired internationally on Bravo!, Current TV, and nationally on PBS. He teaches classes on Social Theory, Cultural Theory, Sociology of Music, Popular Culture, Politics of Knowledge, Urban Community and Research Methods. In addition, Dr. Spring is the current Faculty Fellow for New Student Programs and the Co-Coordinator of the First Year seminar.
Dr. Bonnie Smith teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in English at Belmont. Dr. Smith graduated with honors in English from Sewanee in 1997, earned an M.A. in English/Writing at the University of Tennessee in 1999, and completed the Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003. As a teacher and scholar, she engages her students with questions about how reading and writing influence memory, narrative, identity, economy, technology, and politics. As a citizen, she has a special interest in educational access and equity, an interest which has led her to integrate service-learning into several of her classes. She has written about ways so-called common readers report reading popular novels have "changed" their lives in the context of mass literacy movements.  A new service/research project will investigate ways a local group of women use literacy for identity and self-improvement. Dr. Smith directs the University Writing Center. 
Dr. Andi Stepnick, earned her Ph.D. from Florida State University. She teaches the Sociology of Gender; Family Sociology; the Sociology of Health, Illness & the Body; Restorative Justice; Social Problems; Visual Sociology; and Men, Masculinity & Media. She researches gender and social movements, popular culture, and pedagogy. In fall 2007, she initiated two new community service programs at Belmont to help Nashville's homeless population and to work towards prison reform. In 2005-06, she earned one of Belmont's most prestigious teaching awards, the Presidential Faculty Achievement Award, for her contributions to students' intellectual, personal and professional needs.