Westminster professor, recent grad publish paper on sandwich generation

An academic research paper about members of the sandwich generation, co-written by Westminster College Assistant Professor of Sociology Dr. Jamie J. Chapman and Emily Cornman Frack ’21, was recently published in the Pennsylvania Sociology Society’s peer-reviewed journal Sociological Viewpoints.

“The Unique Experiences of the Sandwich Generation” examines the double-duty caregiving experiences of 12 people “sandwiched” between caring for both their own children and their elderly parents.

The findings of Chapman’s and Frack’s research suggest that sandwiched caregivers experience specific stress-inducing situations that are unique to their structural “sandwiched” positions and that these situations influence their children and their spouses in both positive and negative ways.

The paper is an extension of Frack’s sociology honors research project conducted while a student at Westminster, where she doubled-majored in biology and sociology. Frack is currently a first-year medical student at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Erie, Pa. She hopes to become an orthopedic surgeon with an emphasis on serving others and the humanistic side of medicine.

Chapman, who joined the Westminster faculty in 2014, earned a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in social sciences from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She went on to earn her doctorate in sociology from the University of Akron. Chapman specializes in studying mental health and the social institution of the family.

For more information about Westminster’s sociology program, please visit www.westminster.edu/sociology.

Pictured above, Dr. Jamie Chapman, left, and Emily Cornman Frack '21

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