The Howard W. Odum Professorship in Sociology was created in 1977, two years after the establishment of the Arts and Sciences Foundation. The original gift was donated anonymously by a former colleague of Odum, who founded the University’s department of sociology. The donor stipulated that the recipient be “an individual with imagination and vision, one with the ability and the energy to express these characteristics as Odum did in teaching, in research, in the application of Social Science to an understanding of society and in the service of society.”
Odum was born near Bethlehem, Ga., in 1884. He graduated from Emory College in Oxford, Ga., in 1904, later earning a master’s degree from the University of Mississippi, a doctorate in psychology from Clark University, and a second doctorate in sociology from Columbia University. After two years with the Philadelphia Bureau of Municipal Research, he became an instructor at the University of Georgia. He returned to Emory in 1919 as the dean of liberal arts.
In 1920, Odum arrived in Chapel Hill to direct the School of Public Welfare (later the School of Social Work) and to establish the department of sociology. A few years after his arrival, Odum established the Institute for Research in Social Science (now called the Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science). In 1922, he founded the journal, Social Forces, today one of the world’s most influential sociology journals.
Since its founding, the department of sociology has played a prominent role in the growth of sociology as a major field of research.. The department is consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report in the top 10 sociology graduate schools in the country with specialties in social stratification and sociology of population.
The Howard W. Odum Professors in Sociology to date are:
- 1984-2007: Glen H. Elder, Jr. is a research professor of both sociology and psychology and is currently a fellow at the Carolina Population Center. He began teaching sociology at UNC in 1967. His research focuses on life course research, demographics and social psychology. In 1974, he completed his major work on social history and life course sociology, Children of the Great Depression.
- 2009-2011: Kyle D. Crowder researches residential segregation and neighborhood selection processes. He is currently a professor of sociology at the University of Washington.
- 2009-2010: Guang Guo researches social and health behavior in humans. He is currently the Dr. George and Alice Welsh Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Carolina.
- 2015-present: Robert Hummer is the newest Howard W. Odum Professor of Sociology. Hummer is a sociologist and demographer whose research centers on health and mortality disparities across population groups in the United States. He joined the department in January 2015.
By Sarah Upton
Various sources, including The Odum Institute website.
