History of the Sociology Department at the University of Connecticut

The Department of Sociology at what was then Connecticut State College was founded in 1931. The first department head was James L. Hypes, a rural sociologist who had been at the college since 1921. When the sociology department was founded, Connecticut State College was still an undergraduate college with a strong emphasis on agriculture and rural life. Much of the early research in the department focused on economic and social conditions in rural and suburban Connecticut, and one of the professors, Victor A. Rapport, served on the Connecticut Board of Milk Control. Hypes published a book on social change in the town of Lebanon, Connecticut, but also had international interests: his other books included one on the culture of India and another about his travels around the world.

A few years after the founding of the department, the American Journal of Sociology reported that the introductory courses were enrolling about 200 students per semester, and that the department had started some graduate programs. The first MA in sociology was awarded in 1938, to Don Mitchell, whose thesis was "Migration to and from a Connecticut Suburban Town." In 1939 Connecticut State College became the University of Connecticut and began to expand its graduate programs. Rural sociologist Nathan Whetten became the first dean of the graduate school, and remained in that position until 1970. Whetten was an important figure in both the university and the profession, serving as president of the Eastern Sociological Society in 1949-50.

Hypes remained as department head until 1948, when he was succeeded by James Barnett. In 1949, a reorganization created a Department of Sociology and Anthropology with both research and teaching responsibilities and a Department of Rural Sociology devoted to research and graduate training, with Nathan Whetten as head. However, the departments of Sociology and Rural Sociology continued to work closely together for the next few decades. Eventually Rural Sociology became part of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, which is now Agricultural and Resource Economics.

An announcement published in the April 1949 issue of the American Sociological Review describes the Sociology Department at this time. Six faculty members in sociology and two in anthropology were based in Storrs. Six other faculty taught at the Hartford, Waterbury, and Fort Trumbull (now closed) branch campuses. The department announced that "a number of graduate assistantships are available for the academic year 1949-50. These assistantships carry a stipend of $135.00 a month [the equivalent of about $1100 a month today] for nine months and require half-time assistance from the recipient while working toward an advanced degree." This was still only a MA program--the PhD program did not begin until the late 1950s. The first PhD was awarded in 1957 to William Almy Morrison, whose dissertation was entitled "The Relationship Of Family Size and Socio-cultural Variables to Attitudes Toward Family Planning in a Village of India." He was followed in 1960 by Leona Leatrice Davis, who wrote on "Sociological Correlates of Neonatal and Postneonatal Mortality in the United States." Nathan Whetten was the major advisor on both dissertations. During the 1950s, the department continued its tradition of community studies, many of them focused on Connecticut, but also had international interests: Whetten and Floyd Dotson published on Latin America, and Barnett on Sri Lanka.

The department expanded rapidly in the 1960s: in 1963-4 the Department of Sociology and Anthropology had 13 faculty members, while in 1970-71 the Department of Sociology had twenty-six (Anthropology became a separate department in 1969). One of the new arrivals was Albert K. Cohen, a distinguished criminologist who was hired in 1964. He was appointed University Professor and remained on the faculty until his retirement in 1988. The graduate program also grew, and In the mid-1960s it offered five "fields of special interest": rural sociology, social control and deviant behavior, social organization and institutions, social structure and personality, and urban sociology and ecology (later demography and human ecology). The department, which had been located in the Family Studies building, moved to the new Social Sciences Building (now Montieth Hall) around 1960. In 1968, it moved to its present home in Manchester Hall.

Like many universities, UConn was marked by political conflict during the 1960s. Several members of the department clashed with the university administration over campus recruitment by military contractors--for contrasting views see Leggett and Roach (1973) and Hill (1969). The controversy also led to disagreements within the faculty, as seen in the exchange between Wences and Abramson (1970) and Dotson (1971).

Another important development during the 1960s was growing attention to issues of gender, and in the early 1970s the previously all-male department hired its first female faculty members (several women had previously taught sociology at UConn, but it is not clear whether they were regular faculty members). The first was Florence McCarthy, who left UConn in the late 1970s. She was followed by Jane Wilkie who arrived in 1972 and remained at UConn until her retirement in 1997. Today about 40% of the department's faculty are women. Another notable arrival was Ronald Taylor, who played a leading role in developing the African-American Studies Institute. Taylor also served as department head and is now Vice-Provost for Multicultural and International Affairs. The 1960s and 1970s also saw shifts in scholarly interests which mirrored those in the sociological profession more generally. More faculty and students worked on gender, race and ethnicity, and political sociology, while interest in rural sociology declined.

Since 1980, the department has continued to teach many undergraduates while expanding its graduate programs. Many of the faculty study various types of social inequality, and crime and deviance and social psychology have continued as important areas of research. Also, a number of faculty have continued the tradition of comparative or international research. The department has also responded to technological changes that have transformed sociological research. In his 1957 dissertation, Morrison wrote that we was "indebted to the Monroe Calculating Company which made available a Monroe Calculator to the author." In the 1990s, a generous private donation allowed the department to establish a computer lab for graduate students. In 2004, the lab was updated and expanded with the aid of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and students now have access to a full range of software for quantitative and qualitative analysis.

The menu on the left contains a link to a sample of publications by former faculty and students of the department. Information on the research and accomplishments of current faculty members and recent graduates can be found elsewhere on this site.

References

Dotson, Floyd. 1971. "On Job Placement and Dissent in the University." Social Problems 19: 416-18.

Hill, Evan. 1969. "The Revolution (Cont.): At the University of Connecticut; Revolution at UConn." Ney York Times Magazine (February 23).

Leggett, John C. and Janet Roach. 1973. "UConn Story: Rhetoric and Repression." Pp. 234-43 in Taking State Power, edited by John C. Leggett. New York: Harper & Row.

Wences, Rosalio and Harold J. Abramson. 1970. "Faculty Opinion on the Issues of Job Placement and Dissent in the University." Social Problems 18: 27-38.