Intelligence Offerer

You’ve just been handed your assignment.

As special advisor to President Obama on Afghanistan, you must write a Presidential Daily Briefing analyzing his options:

Which theoretical factors best explain why the Taliban have been steadily gaining strength, despite seven years of U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan? Discuss the pros and cons for ending the insurgency both by increased military efforts and by pursuing nonmilitary alternatives.

Feeling like covert intelligence officer Jack Bauer from an episode of 24?

No, you’re a student in SOC 4090: Terrorist Networks and Counterterror Organizations, a special topics course taught by Motley award-winning sociology professor David Knoke.

Knoke’s innovative and overwhelmingly popular course examines theories and evidence about the social origins, development, and consequences of terrorist networks. Students analyze efforts to prevent, investigate, and prosecute terrorists by counterterror organizations, including law enforcement, security, and military forces.

Drawing students from business, public health, and all of the social and behavioral sciences, SOC 4090 typically exceeds enrollment caps. And Knoke himself is as popular as the fascinating and timely seminar course he created. His teaching evaluation scores routinely reach 100 percent for the question, "Would you take another class with this instructor?" even in his large introductory courses.

Part of Knoke’s popularity is his teaching style. "Professor Knoke constructs learning opportunities so that each student’s interests receive attention," says one of his students. He mixes short formal lectures, video clips, small-group discussions, debates, role-playing, and simulation. His students participate in learning-by-doing assignments throughout every course.

"I strive to turn each course into a community of learners, a supportive environment where young scholars can feel safe in sharing their struggles to acquire, synthesize, and express complicated and difficult ideas," Knoke says.

Knoke’s students also appreciate the clear and careful feedback on their written work. Other students might grumble at grammar or style corrections on papers other than those for writing courses. But for Knoke’s students his red scrawl on their papers is just another example of his attention to detail—and how truly invested he is in helping his students succeed in every respect.

Sociology department chair Chris Uggen says, "Knoke is clearly one of the best-known and brightest stars of the department, an unquestioned leader in the discipline of sociology and in the interdisciplinary field of social network analysis.

"His texts have shaped the instruction of social statistics courses for a generation, his courses have been a turning point for thousands of University students, and he has had a profound impact on the practice of social research inside and outside the academy."

By presenting Knoke with the Motley award in May 2009, the College of Liberal Arts proudly acknowledges him as an exemplary teacher. However, his remarkable teaching ability is truly best expressed by one of his students: "Professor Knoke has been the single most helpful and inspiring professor I have had in my academic career."

The Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award recognizes faculty who are outstanding teachers of graduate and undergraduate students in the College of Liberal Arts.