Obituaries/Transitions
Dorothy E. Smith, 1926-2022
Dorothy E. Smith, the renowned sociological thinker, feminist critic, teacher, and mentor at the center of a large international network of scholarship, died in the early hours of Friday, June 3 after a fall the day before. She had been living in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Dorothy Smith was one of the first women to earn a Ph.D. at the University of California-Berkeley, in 1962. She taught at the University of British Columbia; the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto; and after retirement, at the University of Victoria in B.C. Her first book of many, The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology, was published in 1987; the most recent, Simply Institutional Ethnography, co-authored with the late Alison Griffith, was launched in May of 2022.
Smith’s feminist critique of sociological theory and methods led her to develop a sociology for (rather than about) women, which developed further as a sociology for people and came to be known as Institutional Ethnography. She received the SSSP’s Lee Founders Award in 2017, and was honored with many other accolades from universities and professional organizations throughout the world; in 2019 she received the Order of Canada for her contributions to society. She will be missed by many who studied and worked with her, as well as those who knew her through her writing.
Click here to read a New York Times article honoring Dorothy E. Smith.
A site has been set up where we can post our memories of Dorothy and messages for her family:
https://www.kudoboard.com/boards/92REPim8
Posted: 06/07/22
S.M. "Mike" Miller, 1922-2021
"Miller—who died on October 27, three weeks before his ninety-ninth birthday—was a close advisor to King. He met the civil rights leader in August 1966 when he was invited to speak at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s annual meeting in Jackson, Mississippi. They developed a friendship and working relationship. Miller wrote speeches, congressional testimony, and book chapters for King, including one on economic policy for the 1967 book Where Do We Go from Here?
Miller was a pioneer in making social science useful for activist, progressive groups in the United States and in other countries. He grew up in an impoverished Jewish immigrant family in New York. As he described in his essay “No Permanent Abode,” they were often homeless, frequently evicted from their tenement apartments. Always down-to-earth—a man without pretensions, despite his remarkable professional accomplishments—he never forgot where he came from.
He was trained as an economist at Brooklyn College, Columbia University, and Princeton University, where he wrote a dissertation about leadership and collective bargaining in a local of a national union, a rare topic for economists at the time. He got his first teaching job at Rutgers University, where he taught from 1947 to 1949. Rutgers didn’t renew his contract after he attacked the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act during a radio interview and refused to moderate his public statements. By the 1950s, Miller preferred the company of his more radical friends in sociology anyway, and he turned himself into a sociologist, teaching at Brooklyn College, Syracuse University, NYU, Boston University, and Boston College. His brilliant mind and passion for justice inspired generations of students.
“I was stunned by his bold assertion of progressive perspectives in the worst years of the McCarthy period,” recalled Dick Flacks, who took a course with Miller at Brooklyn College in 1955 and later became a founder of Students for a Democratic Society and a prominent radical sociologist.
Along with C. Wright Mills and a handful of other sociologists, Miller challenged the dominant view of postwar social science that inequality and poverty were no longer serious problems. In a 1961 article for Dissent, “Are Workers Middle Class?“ (co-authored with Frank Riessman), Miller contended that most American workers were not sharing in the benefits of the nation’s prosperity: “The wages of large groups of workers, in the South, in New England, and in ‘sick’ industries are still very low; among workers who suffer most from discrimination—Negroes, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans—poverty is often extreme.” (This was one of many articles Miller wrote for Dissent.)
In all, Miller wrote about 400 articles and eleven books, mostly dealing with poverty and inequality, including Social Class and Social Policy (with Frank Riessman, 1968), The Future of Inequality (with Pam Roby, 1970), Recapitalizing America: Alternatives to the Corporate Distortion of National Policy (with Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, 1983), and Respect and Rights: Class, Race, and Gender Today (with Anthony J. Savoie, 2002). In 1960, for Current Sociology, he wrote the first comparative study of social mobility, pointing out that, contrary to the myth, the rate of downward mobility frequently exceeds the level of upward mobility. He was frequently quoted in the media and liked to write for general audiences, including a regular column for the liberal British magazine New Society."
The above is pulled from an article honoring S.M. "Mike" Miller in Dissent Magazine. Click here to read the entire article.
Posted: 06/24/22
In Memoriam: A Tribute to Alison I. Griffith by Naomi Nichols
I never set out to become a professor. I went to graduate school to do an M.Ed. because I didn’t want to grow up. I’d been teaching overseas, and I knew I wanted to come back to Canada, but I didn’t want to get caught up in climbing a school board salary grid like many of my friends who were teachers in Ontario were doing at the time. So, I went to graduate school. And I only applied to one school (York University) because the idea of an academic track or an academic life had not occurred to me, and I liked that one didn’t have to choose a department at York. My first semester, I took a class with Alison, and as a consequence, I painstakingly read Writing the Social for the first time. I remember coming to her office – something I’d never done as an undergraduate student – with the book and a bunch of drawings and ideas on loose-leaf paper to see if she could help coalesce my sensemaking. My undergraduate degree was in English Literature and Biology, so none of the words Dorothy Smith was using nor the people she was citing were familiar to me. But there was something about what she was saying that spoke to me – and engaged me. I just couldn’t organize my thoughts enough to figure out what it was, and I wanted to ask for Alison’s help.
Looking back on my 25-year-old self, I expect I must have come across as so earnest and pathetic that Alison felt she had to take me on as a student. I had not been assigned to work with her during the admissions process, but I was desperate to be taken into her fold. She represented a whole world that I didn’t know existed. That fall, she invited our class (if my memory serves) to an event on learning to do institutional ethnography organized at the University of Toronto, where I was able to listen to Dorothy herself, Ellen Pence, Didi Khayatt, Roxanna Ng and other IE-folks talk about Dorothy’s influence on their research. My favourite memories are of being in groups of IE scholars (most of whom are now retired) and listening to them talk about their days as Dorothy’s students – the parties they would have and their experiences figuring out how to do this sociology Dorothy had conceptualized. Alison invited me to things. She’d say things like, “let’s put this lunch on the project,” and make me feel like I was part of a world of ideas over lunch or drinks that I hadn’t previously known existed. She made me feel included, and she treated me like my ideas had value. She also offered incisive critiques on numerous occasions when I’d gotten something wrong or started in the wrong place or sent her something that was poorly organized and not yet ready for her to look at.
So, when I received a scholarship in my first year of graduate school, I decided maybe I’d just stick around and apply to do a Ph.D. Again, because I didn’t know there was such a thing as an academic track nor that there was any savvy one should be exercising about where one goes to graduate school or whether or not to continue working with the same supervisor, I didn’t apply anywhere else. I only applied to York, so I could keep working with Alison. Because it wasn’t just graduate school I enjoyed, I liked being in Alison’s world. And I’m so glad that I did this. Because I received exceptional supervision from 2004 until 2019, when – after a visit with her and Harvey in May – Alison insisted that perhaps now I could refer to her as a colleague. This last visit was very impactful for me because a) I knew she was going to die soon; and b) her mentorship and guidance were soul-salve for me at a time when I really needed this. I hadn’t realized how close to the edge of my own capacity to handle my life I was until I had her caring insights and advice to draw from again. I think it may be the case that once you are someone’s supervisor, you are always their supervisor, even if you are both grown women and many years have passed. And even if one of you insists that the other refer to you as a colleague now.
Indeed, it is now that I have my own cadre of doctoral and MA supervisees that I recognize how lucky I was as a student (and how lucky my own students are as a consequence of Alison’s exceptional generosity with me). My ethics as a scholar are Alison’s ethics. She taught me how to be an academic, and I am so glad that she did. I am regularly shown how unique she was in an academic world that rewards self-interest and self-promotion, and thus how lucky I have been to have been mentored by someone who sought to foster a different type of academic culture.
When I said goodbye to Alison, it was a busy Labour Day Monday afternoon, and I was on the front porch with my children. The call caught me off-guard and then – as is the case in a family full of people who largely just see you as a caregiver – I was quickly drawn away from my grief and back into the ordinary activities of preparing dinner and lunches, drawing baths and organizing supplies for the first day of school. Since that day on the porch when I cried into the phone, I haven’t taken enough time to let the magnitude of her influence on me nor her recent death sink in. I’m grateful to have had a chance to take some time to do this today.
Posted: 05/19/20
Robert Aponte
Dr. Robert Aponte, an Associate Professor of Sociology and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Latino Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, passed away from complications related to pancreatic cancer in January, 2020. He impacted innumerable people through his research, teaching, mentorship, activism, and friendship. His commitment to justice, concern for people on the margins, and warm sense of humor were apparent to everyone he met.
He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1991 and joined the Sociology Department at IUPUI in 1996. He served as department chair from 2003-2010, helped found the Latino Studies Certificate Program, and was the faculty advisor for the Latino Studies Student Association. Prior to his arrival at IUPUI, Robert helped found the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University, the premier Latino research institute in the Midwest.
Robert’s research interests and social commitments were wide ranging, including Latin American immigration, Latinos in the Midwest, race and ethnicity, drug policy, police violence, and anti-poverty policy. He published his research in many academic journals, such as Social Problems, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, Latino Studies Journal, Handbook of Marriage and the Family, Global Agenda for Social Justice, Race and Human Rights, and Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies. He was also the principal author of Latinos in Indiana: Characteristics, Challenges and Recommendations for Action, a research report prepared for Indiana Governor Frank O’Bannon.
Robert’s commitment to conducting research that addressed social injustices and led to positive social change was deep and abiding. As just one example of this deep commitment, he completed his last research article—"Police Homicides: The Terror of ‘American Exceptionalism’”—just ten days before his death.
Robert was a beloved teacher who developed strong relationships with his undergraduate and graduate students. He was particularly attentive to the experiences and needs of students of color and students who struggled with mental health and substance abuse challenges, and he formed strong bonds with students who shared his commitment to justice and social change. In recognition of this impact, he received the Latino Studies Program’s Distinguished Award and the Luis Alberto Ambroggio Center for Latino Studies’ Outstanding Professor of the Year Award.
Robert touched many lives. He inspired students, had a ready smile for colleagues, and worked until the end of his life to make the world a more just and compassionate place.
Robert leaves behind his loving partner of 14 years, and our colleague, Dr. Carrie Foote; their 16-year-old son Sami Ardah; his three adult children—Nina, Michael, and Bobby Aponte; his grandson Oliver Aponte, and his brother Willie Aponte, among many other loving relatives. He will be deeply missed and long remembered.
In leu of flowers, donations can be made in Robert’s memory to the newly created Robert Aponte Memorial Scholarship in Latino Studies at IUPUI which will be used to support scholarships for undergraduate students pursuing a minor or certificate in Latino Studies in the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. https://www.myiu.org/one-time-gift?&account=I380015064
Posted: 05/18/20
James Edward Gruber
Jim Gruber was an exceptional scholar and beloved teacher and mentor. He was a faculty member in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at UM-Dearborn from 1979 to 2016, a founding member and teacher in the Women’s and Gender Studies program, and held numerous administrative and faculty governance positions, notably as Associate Dean of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies, Chair of Behavioral Sciences, Director of Sponsored Research, and Chair of the Faculty Senate.
It is difficult to imagine a career more distinguished. His research was path-breaking and socially consequential, his teaching transformative, his service engaged and generous. In numerous articles, conference papers, book chapters and books, his scholarship on sexual harassment and bullying was particularly influential, putting those issues into the public domain—internationally as well as nationally--decades before the Me-Too movement. Current scholars on sexual harassment, bullying, and the treatment of women in the workplace consider his work foundational. Even after his passing, his phone continues to ping daily with announcements that yet another scholar has cited one of his articles. His work led to his frequent testimony as an expert witness on behalf of both male and female plaintiffs in sexual harassment cases. He was engaged to work on over 40 such cases, the last on behalf of the EEOC.
His courses on gender roles, social problems, and social psychology were transformative for generations of students—many of whom contacted him over the years to tell him of his influence on their social awareness and career paths. He was particularly proud of the student who first became a district attorney, and later a public defender; the student who went on to become a tenured professor of sociology also specializing in social justice issues; the student who thought grad school was beyond his reach until Jim encouraged him, but then became a distinguished health psychologist…and so many others. His interest in the treatment of women, and in poverty and inequality, arose partly out of the experience of his mother, who was a factory worker and a union steward under particularly harsh conditions, and later a day-care owner with her sister. He was inspired and motivated by her self-reliance, her strength, her optimism, and her sense of empowerment in the face of many social challenges.
Jim made a pilgrimage a couple of years ago to Chapel Hill, NC, where he had attended graduate school at the University of North Carolina, in order to visit and thank one of his academic mentors, Prof. Richard Kramer, long retired. He would want his students to know that he was part of a long chain of nurturing teachers, and that caring begets more caring down the road. He often talked about one of the earliest intellectual influences in his life, Father Thomas Etten, a highly educated Jesuit priest who chose to teach religion in a rural high school in an inspiringly enlightened way. Jim felt that this man’s deep reading, curious and questioning nature, and intense critical thinking about the major questions of human experience set him on a path to his own areas of academic focus. Like his mentors, Jim was deeply humane and open-minded, and also intellectually rigorous. He once wrote that he became a sociologist “in order to understand the root causes of social and economic inequality….I have tried through my research, teaching, and public service to advocate for justice and to give a voice to those who are silenced because of prejudice and discrimination.” He honored that goal throughout his professional and personal life, studying (and advocating for change around) issues of poverty, homelessness, and hunger; bigotry and hatred; and mass incarceration. In service of his values, he worked with Habitat for Humanity, taught in a women’s prison, and supported a host of social justice organizations.
Among his many honors, Jim was the recipient of both the UM-Dearborn campus’s Distinguished Research Award and Distinguished Service Award. For his work and advocacy on gender issues he was named the campus’s first male recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Award, and he was honored with the University of Michigan’s system-wide Sarah Goddard Power Award, granted for “significant achievement in contributing to the betterment of current challenges faced by women.” In 2012, he was awarded the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters’ first Collegiate Professorship, the Frances Cousens Collegiate Professorship, named for a pioneering woman and a UM-Dearborn sociologist.
A passionate birder, an avid enthusiast of the outdoors, a dedicated and patient fisherman, and a lifelong learner, Jim was a singularly good man. He was quiet, steady, and full of empathy. He spent 60 years returning every summer to his beloved cove on the Wisconsin River, fishing and communing with his best friends, Henry David Thoreau, St. Francis, and fishing buddy Joe Chenier. He lived his life in joy and awe, embracing travel, nature, and service to others. May he rest in peace, with companionable birds and muskies circling quietly around him.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his memory to any of the following: the UU Congregation, the Nature Conservancy, the Audubon Society, the Human Rights Campaign, Ann Arbor Safe House, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Arbor Hospice, or the ACLU.
Posted: 07/08/19
John F. Galliher
John F. Galliher, 81, of Columbia, passed away Tuesday, May 21, 2019, at Lenoir Woods in Columbia, Missouri. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a son of the late Frank W. and Rea (Bates) Galliher.
He graduated from Paseo High School in Kansas City. After serving in the U.S. Air Force and receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas City, John was united in marriage to Jeanne Zuk, who survives at their home.
John went on to earn his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Indiana University. He was Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Missouri-Columbia and served as the University’s Director of Peace Studies for 16 years. He was a prolific writer of professional books and journal articles and the recipient of many honors and awards including the Maxine Schutz Award for Distinguished Teaching. Colleagues, students and friends describe him as a wonderful friend and mentor; a strong advocate for peace, justice and nonviolence and that person against whom you should measure a good person.
He was a member of numerous professional associations and served as President of The Society for the Study of Social Problems. John enjoyed reading, writing, jazz, his church, travel and especially his family. His career was also his hobby and he often quipped that he would open a Sociology Shop upon retirement.
He was a member of Calvary Episcopal Church, Columbia, serving on its Vestry and various taskforces and committees. A Memorial Service will be held at the church at 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, May 28, 2019.
Along with his wife, John is survived by son, Daniel Galliher (Renee); daughter, Leigh Holliday (Mark); two grandchildren, Lily and Ryan Galliher; brother, James Galliher and grand pets Roxie, Cece, Annabelle and Cash.
John was preceded in death by two brothers, Charles and Thomas.
Expressions of sympathy may be made to Calvary Episcopal Church, Hospice Compassus, Columbia’s Parkinson Support Group or the University of Missouri Peace Studies Program.
Arrangements are under the direction of Parker-Millard Funeral Service and Crematory; 12 East Ash Street, Columbia, Missouri, 65203; (573) 449-4153. Condolences may be left online for the family at www.ParkerMillard.com.
Posted: 6/24/19
Gideon A. Sjoberg
Gideon A. Sjoberg was born in Dinuba, CA on August 31, 1922. He died in Austin, Texas on December 4, 2018, at the age of 96. His parents were migrants from Finland. His father was a peach farmer in California; his mother had been a nurse in the Finnish Civil War (1917 – 1918). Sjoberg’s family were Swedish speaking Finns, an ethnic group within Finns. Sjoberg often made a point of his Swede-Finn background distinguishing as separate from both Swedes and Finns.
After graduating from Kingsburg High School, Sjoberg attended junior college in Fresno where his intellectual journey began. He began reading extensively on various subjects. After finishing in Fresno, Sjoberg enrolled at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque (where he met his future wife Andree), and from there went to Washington State College (now Washington State University). His interest in comparative sociology was piqued in a reading course with the Anthropologist Allan H. Smith, who guided him in reading about the major cultural areas of the world. After completing his work at Washington State, Gideon and Andree spent the summer of 1949 at UC Berkeley. Sjoberg heard lectures by the China scholar Wolfram Eberhard and Walter Goldschmidt, focused then on preliterate Africa, and Daryll Forde, another anthropologist who worked on preliterate groups in Africa.
Following this summer at Berkeley, the Sjoberg’s moved to Austin – thus beginning his 60-year run at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the course of Sjoberg’s long academic career, he focused his considerable intellect on three substantive areas: the preindustrial city, methodology, and bureaucracy. Shortly after arriving in Austin, Sjoberg, with Andree’s assistance, began to formulate a plan for The Preindustrial City (1960). Two articles on Robert Redfield’s work on folk societies prepared Sjoberg to examine an intermediate stage of development between folk societies and industrial ones. He argued that the preindustrial city organized a distinctive spatial configuration of the city around functional requirements of social order that cut across cultural differences.
The Preindustrial City was the first major work by a mid-twentieth century sociologist to take on issues addressed mainly by classicists and anthropologists. Sjoberg took sharp criticism from those quarters, but his work endured and stimulated further work for more than half a century. Second, his work cut against the grain of much American urban sociology which was pre-occupied with the transition from rural, agricultural societies into modern industrial ones. Sjoberg did not criticize nor reject the work of such Chicago sociologists like Louis Wirth’s “Urbanism as a Way of Life,” but The Preindustrial City was a sharp reminder that sociological theories of cities would have to take account of a distinctive type of city that was being ignored by his contemporaries.
In 2018, Sjoberg had the opportunity to revisit the Preindustrial City in an essay appearing in the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies (2019). Here, he used the works of economic historian Joel Mokyr (2002, 2005, 2011) to reinforce his argument that pre-industrial social orders were distinctive from scientific, knowledge-based industrial ones.
Sjoberg’s methodological contributions were also innovative and include his methodology book (with Roger Nett), his countersystem analysis, and his encouragement of comparative sociology, case studies, and autobiographies in sociological analyses. His methodology book used a sociology of knowledge framework and emphasized that researchers must critically consider the ethical and political pressures they confront when collecting and analyzing data. The salience of this perspective was driven home in the most recent financial crisis when it came to light that the bond rating firms -- Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s -- were assigning less-than objective ratings to what were in fact junk bonds which ultimately contributed to the financial crisis.
Sjoberg (and Cain’s) theorizing on a counter system to reset the status quo is another idea that has caught on. Eminent sociologist, Joe Feagin, made a counter system the defining feature of what he calls “liberation sociology”; so too did Steve Lyng in his analysis of the American health care system. Sjoberg also (2018) made a counter-system argument for dismantling the prison-industrial complex.
At a time when many academics begin winding down, Sjoberg was just hitting his stride. His work stemming in the 1960s on “Bureaucracy and the Lower Class” primed him to see the major shifts in political economy underfoot in the United States. The growth he witnessed at the University of Texas at Austin provided him a birds-eye view of the macro and micro processes that were unfolding across the country, indeed the globe. Furthermore, key works undertaken by his graduate students during this time including Paula Miller, Dan Rigney, Sara McLanahan, Sherri Grasmuck and Norma Williams aided his knowledge of and expanded his theorizing on the future, the role of large-scale bureaucracies, secrecy and human rights. The edited volume A Critique of Contemporary American Sociology (1992) (with Vaughn and Reynolds) crystallized his views on bureaucracy, ethics and human rights making explicit problem areas that many sociologists avoid. Together with Ted Vaughn, Sjoberg came to the realization that in order to understand markets, one also had to understand the role of large-scale organizations in the economy.
Sjoberg was highly influenced by the works of Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens. He shared their concern regarding the future and risks but was critical of their failure to satisfactorily grapple with the role that large-scale organizations play in this arena. The expansive role that multinational corporations play in the world, and the inadequacy of nation-state specific laws to address global human rights abuses, led Sjoberg to adopt a broad human rights perspective that extended beyond the typical citizenship/national sovereignty perspectives so as to confront the power being wielded by global organizations. Sjoberg’s perspective on human rights was one that recognized that all people have a right to dignity, respect and equality regardless of citizenship.
The final leg of Sjoberg’s academic journey is revealed in his scholarship record after he turned 75 years of age in which he connected many of his strands of research. His preoccupation with large-scale organizations, the future and risk contributed to his articles and book chapters on the Sociology of Human Rights, Corporations and Human Rights, The Social Control Industry and Human Rights, Countersystem Analysis and the Construction of Alternative Futures which all addressed in one way or the other the need to reflect upon other social arrangements to assist humankind overcome the grave issues we face now and to come. His article justifying academic tenure is prescient in these times of increasing gig work and deserves highlighting in this recitation of his profound academic record.
Sjoberg never stopped working although admittedly, much of his pleasure diminished when his life partner Andree died in the spring of 2018. While they had no children, they leave behind a host of former graduate students and colleagues who learned by his example the meaning of mentoring. He was generous with his time, spending hours, primarily on the phone, working out ideas, listening to ideas, and expanding upon ideas. The round-the-clock care that the Allejo family provided both Sjobergs in their twilight years must also be recognized. Without this care, Sjoberg would not have been able to devote his mental energies to the production of sociological knowledge that extended well into his 90s.
Boyd Littrell and Karen Manges Douglas
Posted: 04/24/19
The Passing of a Colleague and a Friend

Matthew was a one-of-a-kind scholar, the likes of which we never knew we needed. Coming up from humble beginnings, a diffi- cult childhood, and a rich, personal history of experience in sub-cultural groups, he brought a nuanced, critically-minded approach to the study of delinquency. His personal experience became a tool in the classroom, inspiring his students to look beyond the textbook. He encouraging students to get their hands dirty by exploring groups far removed from their personal experience and to take the lessons of sociology into the real world. In fact, the halls of his former gradu- ate school department, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, are still lined with the poster presentations from his classes, where no other undergraduate class’s work is featured. It is no wonder UNLV saw fit to award him with a University-wide teaching award.
Matthew had just completed his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and begun a tenure-track position this Fall teaching in both sociology and criminology at Coppin State University in Baltimore. It was his dream to move beyond his beginnings and excel in the every day acts of teaching, knowledge creation, and activism. Matthew lives on in the work of his peers, students, and faculty who he inspired to push the boundaries of teaching, research, and community involvement.
Chris Wakefield
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Lai Han Lisa Watt
It is with great sadness that we share news of the death of one of our division members. Dr. Lai Han Lisa Watt was a well-liked and respected member of our IE network. Lisa was a passionate scholar and a dedicated mother to her daughter Lok- Yi who became the focus of Lisa’s doctoral work: “Her Life Rests on Your Shoulders”: Doing Worry as Emotion Work in the Care of Children With Diabetes.
A tribute to Lisa along with information about donating to a fund set up for Lok-Yi can be found here: https://socialwork.mcmaster.ca/news/remembering-lisa-watt
Posted: 12/18/18
Murray Straus

Murray Straus, an internationally influential former professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire and founder of the field of family violence research, died May 13 at the age of 89.
Beginning in the 1970s, his surveys established that people were far more likely to be assaulted and injured by members of their own family than they were by strangers, fundamentally changing popular and academic conceptions about crime and crime prevention.
He devoted much of his later career to the study of spanking and corporal punishment, accumulating evidence that spanking was associated with increased subsequent aggression among children and reduced warmth between them and their parents, among other negative side effects.
He pioneered techniques for getting information about sensitive topics such as being the victim or perpetrator of family violence in national household and telephone surveys. His Conflict Tactics Scale, which he revised over the years, became the standard approach for gathering information about child and spouse abuse and one of the more widely used instruments in social science.
His findings led him to the conclusion that, although women suffered more serious consequences than men from domestic aggression, women perpetrated a considerable amount of violence in intimate relationships that also needed to be addressed in public policy if families were to be made safe.
Early in his career he specialized in rural sociology and the measurement of family interaction.
He became interested in family violence as a result of planning a meeting of the National Council of Family Relations in Chicago, Illinois, in 1968 in the wake of police brutality there at the Democratic Convention.
He decided that to engage with the issues of the day, they needed to assemble a panel on the connection between families and societal violence. He went on to show that people exposed to violence in their families of origin were considerably more likely to engage in violence as adults and to support public policies such as capital punishment and military intervention.
He was of the opinion that spanking, even when used in moderation, taught that hitting and violence were appropriate and even necessary responses when a person believed someone else’s misbehavior needed correction. He concluded, based on his research, that parents should be taught to never spank children. He strongly endorsed and provided much of the scientific evidence to back efforts to ban corporal punishment, a ban which has been adopted by more than four dozen countries.
Straus spent most of his career, from 1968 until his death, at UNH, much of it as director of the Family Research Laboratory, after previous positions at Washington State University, University of Wisconsin, Cornell and the University of Minnesota. He received his bachelor’s and doctoral training at the University of Wisconsin.
He was an energetic and prolific scholar, authoring 15 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. Among the most widely cited were “Behind Closed Doors” and “Beating the Devil Out of Them.”
He was also a devoted teacher who trained and mentored dozens of scholars, including many of the current luminaries in the field of family violence, as director for 30 years of a post-doctoral fellowship program funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.
He served as president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the National Council on Family Relations and the Eastern Sociological Society and was active in numerous other academic organizations.
He was the recipient of many awards, including from the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, the National Association of Social Workers and the American Sociological Association.
He was known as a warm and engaging person who enjoyed collaborating with colleagues and supervising students. He assembled two large international consortia, involving dozens of scholars in more than 30 countries to conduct cross-national comparative surveys on dating violence and parental disciplinary practices.
Straus was born in New York City on June 18, 1926, to Samuel and Kathleen (Miller) Straus.
He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Dunn Straus; his children by a previous marriage, Carol Straus and Dr. John Straus; his stepchildren David Dunn and wife Kathy, Lisa Dunn, Thomas Dunn and wife Linda; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A memorial to commemorate his life and work is planned for July 11 in conjunction with the International Conference on Family Violence and Child Victimization Research to be held at the Portsmouth Sheraton. All members of the community are welcome.
Contributions in his memory may be made to the Family Research Lab Projects Fund, with checks made out to UNH Foundation and referencing Murray Straus, and mailed to:
Family Research Lab Projects Fund
c/o UNH Foundation
9 Edgewood Road
Durham, NH 03824
A blog for friends and colleagues to share recollections and sentiments can be accessed here.
There will be a memorial celebration of his life and work at the upcoming International Family Violence and Child Victimization Research Conference at the Portsmouth Sheraton Hotel, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, July 10-12, 2016. For more information please visit the conference website.
Posted On 05/13/2016
A. Kathryn Stout

Kate Stout passed away peacefully on 21 July 2015 at the age of 58 in her hometown of New Orleans, following a long struggle with respiratory problems. A hurricane Katrina survivor, Kate had been Associate Professor of Sociology at Manhattan College since the autumn of 2012.
Kate dedicated her life to teaching and to promoting progressive social change. Her research focused on social movements and the legal limits of protest, which she pursued from a critical, sociology of law approach. Her study of the mid-1980s Sanctuary Movement brought her to the field along the southwest border with Mexico where she came face to face with contradictory US responses to recurring migratory crises. Subsequent travels brought her to Nicaragua and Cuba where she expressed an unconditional solidarity with peoples under attack by misguided US foreign policy. Everywhere she went, Kate established ties of friendship and mutual learning that fueled her exemplary interactive classroom teaching. Her enormous skills at translating complex social and legal processes into plain English are now legendary.
In earlier decades, Kate was active in a variety of professional associations, including the Association for Humanist Sociology (AHS), the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), American Sociological Association (ASA) and the Division on Critical Criminology of the Section of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Over recent years, however, her declining health made it increasingly difficult to attend professional meetings. Prior to coming to New York City, she was an Associate Professor at the Southern University of New Orleans (SUNO), where she participated in post-Katrina reconstruction. She held earlier posts at Dominican University and Northeastern Illinois University, along with visiting posts at SUNY- Plattsburgh, Purdue University and Central Michigan University. Her doctoral work under the direction of the late Bill Chambliss was completed at the University of Delaware following her MA at Boston College, where she was influenced by mentors such as Richard Quinney and Stephen Pfohl. Kate was in the process of editing a collection of critical criminology scholarship dedicated to the legacy of Chambliss when her health took a dramatic turn for the worse.
In the end, the tenacity with which Kate struggled for survival was surpassed only by the uncompromising lifelong stance she took on demanding social justice. She felt that sociology was at its best when it provided a voice for the voiceless. She will be greatly missed by her students, friends and colleagues.
Dr. Stout's obituary was written by R.A. Dello Buono, Manhattan College, NYC.
Posted 8/19/15
Leonard Gordon

Len Gordon, 79, of Scottsdale, AZ unexpectedly passed away on March 4th, 2015 from a heart attack. He was preceded in death by his wife Rena Joyce Feigelman Gordon and is survived by his wife Dorthy Levy Herzberg, children Melinda Sue Gordon, Matt Gordon and his wife Brenda Nard and Malka Melissa (maBliss) Verbena, step children David and his wife Dana Herzberg, Matt and his wife Amber Herzberg, grandchildren Jake, Hal, Lily, Jordan and Nathan along with many family, friends, university students, colleagues and fellow softball players. Len was an alumnus of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University where he earned his Ph.D. in Sociology.
Len moved to Arizona in 1967 to teach at Arizona State University where he worked tirelessly as a professor, chairman, dean and champion until the day he died. He was instrumental in the establishment of the ASU Emeritus College and currently sat on the University Senate. Len loved Dorthy, baseball, dancing, Gershwin and jovial conversation. He will be sorely missed.
In lieu of flowers, please consider memorial donations to benefit the Len and Rena Gordon Spunky Award for ASU students. You may make a gift online at http://asufoundation.org/spunkyaward or send a check, payable to the ASU Foundation, to Jill DeMichele.
To send remarks or condolences visit http://www.tributes.com/obituary/show/Leonard-Gordon-102251823?f_e=1.
Posted 3/10/15
JoAnn R. L. Miller
JoAnn R. L. Miller, 65, of West Lafayette, died on December 25, after a 9 month battle with primary peritoneal cancer. She lived a very full life, and was brave to the very end, surrounded by family. She touched the lives of many people, and will be missed sorely. She was an educator, and later administrator at Purdue, and worked hard in the nearby communities to put her knowledge to work for the betterment of all.
JoAnn was born JoAnn Rita Langley on July 12, 1949, to John Rogers and Rita Violet Langley, (both deceased) of Manchester, New Hampshire. She attended Villa Augustina Academy, and Mount St. Mary Academy, both in Manchester, and distinguished herself early as a state debate champion. She matriculated at Ithaca College (NY) in 1967, left school to marry Douglas Miller in 1968, and in 1969 gave birth to her son Jonathan. She resumed her education with a B.A. from Keene State College in 1978, a M.S. in sociology from William & Mary in 1980, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) in 1984.
She joined the Purdue sociology faculty in 1984 and quickly distinguished herself. Her work in academic programs, on committees, and her many publications are too lengthy to list here. She founded the Law and Society section, which soon held the largest enrollment in the Department of Sociology.
JoAnn met Scott Frankenberger in early 1988, and they married that summer. Theirs was a very happy and passionate marriage. They loved each other very much. They loved to be with family. They loved to work in the community and to travel. Italy became their favorite destination. At work, JoAnn continued to win teaching awards, was a visiting scholar in Jakarta, Indonesia, and at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and a Fellow in Law and Society at Harvard Law School, where she was in residence from 1999-2000.
Rising through the ranks at Purdue, JoAnn achieved Full Professor of Sociology in 2008, serving as Interim Head from 2009-2010. At about the same time, she was appointed Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Studies and Engagement in the College of Liberal Arts (2008). Over her career, she published 7 books, as well as numerous book chapters, articles, and reviews. She was also active in national and international professional societies. She gave the keynote address at a national conference on family violence in Jakarta, Indonesia (1991), and chaired a presentation at the International Congress on Mental Health and the Law in Berlin, Germany (2011). Active in the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), she was the President of this international organization for 2009-2010. And, most recently, she proposed the formation of the School for Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue, and became the Head of this school in April, 2014.
JoAnn's intensity was not confined to Purdue or far-flung locations. She was a strong advocate of faculty bringing their expertise to bear on their local community, to be engaged and give back. She worked with the community of Lafayette over the years in many ways, with court programs, jail issues, housing problems, and much more, authoring many grants that brought federal and state money into the community. She advocated for evidence-based practices, diversion programs, prisoner re-entry, and "fresh-start" housing, all with neighborhood improvement and crime reduction in mind. She authored the successful Weed and Seed grants from the US Department of Justice in cooperation with Mayor Roswarski's office, a major United Way grant, several Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority grants, as well as a Duke Energy Grant for a community diversity study.
In her home life she was the loving wife and partner of Scott, devoted mother to Jonathan, daughter-in-law Maura, and especially her grandson Gus. They were kindred mischievous spirits. Also, warm stepmother to Jennifer (Frankenberger) Segovia, and stepson Casey Frankenberger. She loved helping others, reading, good cooking (someone else's), comedy, the music of Shirley Horn, NCAA sweet 16, fashion, and travel. She loved riding in the Queen's car, and the occasional Jack double on the rocks. She loved especially Italy, where she and her husband visited when they could. Despite her cancer, she was able to visit there one last time between the end of chemotherapy in August and surgery in October. She seemed especially at peace on this trip. In late November the cancer returned, and in spite of her courage and determination it took her on Christmas Day.
Besides her immediate family, she is survived by her three sisters, Donna Lee Leinsing, Debra Lou Fuchs, and Ruby Margaret Stephens, and her brother John Richard Langley, and many nieces, nephews, and other grandchildren. She was adored by her husband, loved by many others, and she loved and adored unselfishly right back.
A memorial scholarship fund will be established in the College of Liberal Arts in her name. The nature of the scholarship is still to be determined. If you wish to contribute to this fund, please contact Lori Sparger in the CLA Development office at lsparger@prf.org or 765-494-9314. Checks to the Purdue Foundation can be mailed to the CLA Development Office, 100 N. University St., West Lafayette, IN 47907 with "JoAnn Miller" in the memo line.
Her life is to be celebrated and praised, not mourned. A memorial celebration will be held at Purdue Memorial Union on Friday, March 6, from 4-6PM, in the Anniversary Drawing Room (Room 304). All her friends, relatives, and colleagues are invited to attend and share stories about her remarkable life.
Dr. Miller's obituary was written by her husband, Scott Frankenberger.
To send remarks or condolences visit http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/jconline/obituary.aspx?n=joann-r-l-miller&pid=173838625.
Posted: 01/15/15
On Christmas Day 2014 JoAnn Miller, age 65, lost her battle against primary peritoneal cancer. She joined the Department of Sociology at Purdue in 1984, after receiving her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Earlier, she had earned an Associate of Arts degree from the Merrimack Valley Branch of the University of New Hampshire in 1976, a Bachelor of Arts degree from Keene College, in New Hampshire in 1978, and a Master of Arts degree from the College of William and Mary in Virginia in 1980.
From the moment that she arrived in West Lafayette, as an Assistant Professor of sociology, Professor Miller has served Purdue and Greater Lafayette, bringing together academics and community leaders to address social problems and implement solutions. Her life embodies scholarship in pursuit of social justice.
As part of her contribution to building the Law and Society program in the Department of Sociology at Purdue, she worked with the local prosecutor’s office, obtaining a substantial ($121,000) grant from the National Institute of Justice in 1988. Later she turned to more general community development efforts, building on a series of relatively small grants to develop the “Downtown Lafayette Weed and Seed Program” (2007-2008), which brought in over a half million dollars in funding for a five year program. At the same time (2007), she developed a two-year program, studying sex offenders returning from state prison ($168,136), and another project focused on “Affordable Housing: A Tool for a Successful Re-entry Problem Solving Court” ($256,485). Even in failing health she managed to secure a grant to study rental assistance, to complement the affordable housing project, as another aspect of the “Re-entry Court.”
Meanwhile, back at Purdue, Professor Miller rose through the academic ranks, achieving national and international distinction, as Associate Editor, from 1994-1996 (with Robert Perrucci), of Social Problems, the official journal of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, and as co-editor, from 2001-2005 (with Robert Perrucci), of Contemporary Sociology, the journal which publishes reviews of record for the American Sociological Association. In 2008, she was named Professor of Sociology and appointed Associate Dean for Interdisciplinary Studies and Engagement for the College of Liberal Arts. In 2009-2010, she served as Interim Head, for the Department of Sociology, stepping back temporarily from the dean’s office in a moment of departmental need. Then, after years of noteworthy scholarship and invaluable national service, she was elected President (2009-2010) of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Most recently, she became head of the newly created School for Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue, in April 2014.
Her published works includes six books. These include two edited collections (1984 and 1986) for Research in Social Problems and Public Policy. (Volumes III and IV), two books (1991 and 2007) on child abuse and family violence (with Dean Knudsen), and two books (2009 and 2011) on “Problem Solving Courts” (with the honorable D. C. Johnson). This last project epitomizes her effort to bring academics and community leaders together in developing better ways to serve the noble goal of social justice within the context of civil and criminal law.
Her scores of shorter papers include numerous publications coauthored with her many students.
JoAnn was born July 12, 1949, in Manchester, New Hampshire, the second of five children born to John Rogers Langley and Rita Violet Langley (née Carrier), both deceased. She is survived by four siblings, Donna Lee Leinsing, Debra Lou Fuchs, Ruby Margaret Stevens, and John Richard Langley. She was the loving wife and partner of Scott Frankenberger, devoted mother to Jonathan Miller, and his wife, Maura Smale, and was especially devoted to their son, her grandson, August (“Gus”). JoAnn was also a warm stepmother to Jennifer (Frankenberger) Segovia, and stepson Casey Frankenberger. She will be sorely missed by her family, her colleagues, and her many friends locally and nationally.
A memorial scholarship fund will be established in the College of Liberal Arts in her name. The exact nature of the scholarship is still to be determined, but if you wish to contribute to this fund, please contact Lori Sparger in the CLA Development office at lsparger@prf.org or 765-494-9314. Checks to the Purdue Foundation can be mailed to the CLA Development Office, 100 N. University St., West Lafayette, IN 47907 with “JoAnn Miller” in the memo line.
Dr. Miller's obituary was written by Richard Hogan, Purdue University and Carolyn Cummings Perrucci, Purdue University.
Posted 01/13/15