• 
• Ph.D. University of Maryland, 1990.
• Professor
• E-mail: tburns@ou.edu
• Office Phone: (405)325-0461
• Office: Kaufman Hall 323
• Curriculum Vitae:
• Academic Interests: Comparative and Historical Development, Environment and Human Ecology, Sociology of Health, Social Theory, Statistics and Methods, Social Institutions (particularly Religion, Stratification, Military and Education Systems), Communication and Rhetoric, Culture and Social Change
• Courses Taught:
  Undergraduate: Introduction to Sociology, Introduction to Statistics, Measurement and Statistics, Introduction to Social Theory, Environment, Ecology, and Society, Religion and Society, Sociology of Education, Sociology of Health and Illness, Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior {team taught}, Micro-Macro Linkages in Stratification Systems,
  America as Civilization {team taught; cross-listed as graduate course}, Senior Capstone Course, Social Institutions in a Comparative/Historical Perspective
  Graduate Seminars: Classical Social Theory, Contemporary Social Theory, Seminar in Social Theory, Intermediate Statistics, Advanced Statistics, Time Series and Structural Equation Modeling {team}, Archival Methods of Social Research, Religion and Society, Seminar in Environment, Ecology, and Society

My research is directed to developing a theoretical framework describing the outcomes, evolution and emergence of social institutions from a comparative and historical perspective, and testing and refining that framework through empirical analysis.  I examine outcomes of global and domestic institutional processes particularly in studies of the environment and health, and address questions of institutional evolution by tracing how organizational systems, such as religion, education and the military, develop in relation to one another in light of their comparative and historical contexts; in work on institutional emergence, I investigate ways in which macro-level institutional practices arise from individual cognitive processes and micro-level interactions.  My primary methodological approach is to analyze data sets containing macro- and/or individual-level indicators, using quantitative techniques such as structural equation and time series modeling; I complement this with qualitative work, including discourse analysis and the examination of historical archives.