Academic Disciplines: Sociology in Bloom

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In their characteristic way, some sociologists define sociology as "the study of the behavior of human beings with, to, and for one another, and of the resulting arrangement of relationships and activities which we call human society." Now something new is happening with, to, and for sociologists. They are finding to their delight that their work is in great demand in today's self-conscious society. Their academic prestige is rising, and colleges are eager to pay a high price for their talents as well as their semantics.

Peppering the Profs. "We've come into a new day," says Dr. Dan Dodson, chairman of N.Y.U.'s department of sociology and anthropology, while complaining that he sought seven new sociologists for his staff this year, but could snare only three because of the nationwide competition. "I fully expected to retire at $10,000 and live a fairly spartan life," beams a young Emory University sociologist who got 14 job offers—one at $18,000 a year—even though he was not seeking a change."I hardly know what to make of what's happened."

The Berkeley campus of the University of California—where some people would say a need has been demonstrated—has offered more than $25,000 a year to a few renowned sociologists, $20,000 to others less well known. The University of Southern California will pay $20,000 for a top professor, as will New York University. A big name can try for $25,000 at Harvard and probably get it. A sociologist at Tulane who only five years ago was drawing $10,000 now gets $21,000. And average pay is also rising. Median salary at the universities is $10,000, only slightly below economists'.

Moonlighting becomes them too. Publishers are peppering sociologists with offers. "I've heard it said that any sociology professor who can't double his salary with extracurricular jobs shouldn't be here," says Brandeis Sociology Chairman John R. Seeley. A sociologist can command $100 a day as a consultant to industry, up to $90 a day as adviser to such federal agencies as the National Institutes of Health, CIA, Census Bureau, State Department, Office of Economic Opportunity, and Office of Education. Sociologist David Riesman (The Lonely Crowd) left Chicago for Harvard in 1958, not for money ("Any time I'm hard up I can give a lecture somewhere"), but because he was offered a special chair that would permit him to teach undergraduates without restrictions. Demographers are in big demand, and so are social psychologists and sociologists with training in medicine. The American Sociology Association, whose total membership runs to 8,500, has a medical-sociology section with nearly 600 members.