Editorial Board:
Editor:
George H. Conklin,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Board:
Rebecca Adams,
 UNC-Greensboro

Bob Davis,
 North Carolina
 Agricultural and
 Technical State
 University

Catherine Harris,
 Wake Forest
 University

Ella Keller,
 Fayetteville
 State University

Ken Land,
 Duke University

Miles Simpson,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Ron Wimberley,
 N.C. State University

Robert Wortham,
 North Carolina
 Central University

Editorial Assistants

John W.M. Russell,
 Technical
 Consultant

Austin W. Ashe,
 Duke University

® 

Volume 8, Number 2

Fall/Winter 2010
 
 

Passion Wasn't Dead.
It Was Just Living in Mexico

by

Cheryl Lynn Brown
Presidential Address
2009 Annual Meeting of the 
North Carolina Sociological Association

     I am a sociologist. This means I was raised in my discipline by a passionate, spirited tribe. We're not really a tribe in the anthropological sense of shared values or an identity, more like a group who has heard the siren call of sociology and come together because they had no other choice. Since the beginning, this group has disagreed on virtually everything. From 1905 when Albion Small argued vigorously that social research was not an end in itself but should serve to improve society …  to Parks' famous suggestion that the first thing one does to make a good sociologist is to dissuade them from the notion of saving the world …. To Ogburn's call in 1929, for a sociology emphasizing statistical methods and argued that sociologists should not be involved as sociologists in improving society; instead they should focus on efficiently discovering knowledge about society. Today the passionate debate continues between supporters of the applied and the theoretical, the public and the professional branches. 

     We are qualitative or quantitative. We are conflict theorists, symbolic interactionists, feminist scholars, or postmodernists. But, whatever we are, we are passionate and it is that spirit and drive, that pushes us forward towards excellence.

     Yes, we are a passionate group. If you randomly stop folks at any college or university and ask about the sociology program, chances are they'll tsk tsk, shake their head and wonder why you are inquiring about probably the most dysfunctional family on campus. At Greensboro College, in the minutes of our departmental meetings we use the phrase "a lively discussion ensued" which, translates roughly to - there is blood on the walls. Every one of us can tell stories of mentors or colleagues crawling over the table to push, grab, smack, or tackle another sociologist during a lively discussion. We're a passionate group.

     We research, write, march, protest, lock ourselves in our offices, and may forget to tell our partners, spouses, and family that we love them. We agitate, irritate, and ruminate over a problem that has us stumped. We stare at computer screens, movie screens, and screaming protesters searching for the answer.  We are ecstatic when the new statistical model works and despondent when our digital interviews are erased. We are loud … we are quiet. We gladly lead the charge against injustice and sit alone to ponder the truths of our social universe. We will rip apart poorly constructed research and defend to the death anther's right to conduct work on subjects many may consider taboo. We are a passionate group.

     We are brought to sociology by a chance encounter with the discipline that will rule our lives. A professor challenges us and the world opens up. Suddenly, for the first time we see the big picture and understand our place in it. With our newfound passion for this littlest of sciences, we venture home on break and manage to piss everyone off with our passion for equality and impatience with the slow pace of change. Many of us go out into the workplace and use the basic skills of our discipline throughout our careers. Others head to graduate school and are rewarded by a very different adventure. Exploring new areas of the field, being told that we are to forget everything we'd ever been taught about theory, finding the coldest, cheapest beer near professional meetings where we can go with friends and imagine what sociology will look like when we're in charge, the late night debates, the cramped shared offices and squeezing 8 to a room at NCSA, the Southerns, the Midsouths, ASA, SSSP, or anywhere else where your paper had been accepted … have car will travel … great another line on the vita. For we are passionate students and are finding our way to the life of the mind.

     Years from now our students may not remember Merton's 2x2 table addressing the relationship between prejudice and discrimination. They may not remember Weber's work on authority or Durkheim's mechanical and organic solidarity. What they will remember is the expertise we showed when discussing these concepts and how we helped them make sense of the world. They will remember the headaches we caused when we pushed them to see the world from a different perspective. But, mostly they will remember the passion with which we embraced our discipline and them.  We are passionate teachers and share our souls with those ready to learn. 

     But for most of us … passion, which has burned so brightly, starts to flicker and dim. Confused we wonder how to get the magic back. After all, are we not invincible, able to teach others to deal with burnout, surely that is not our problem. But often that is the problem. Maybe we should give every faculty member a copy of Burawoy's warning, he maintains: "The original passion for social justice, economic equality, human rights, sustainable environment, political freedom or simply a better world, that drew so many of us to sociology, is channeled into the pursuit of academic credentials. Progress becomes a battery of disciplinary techniques – standardized courses, validated reading lists, bureaucratic rankings, intensive examinations, literature reviews, tailored dissertations, refereed publications, the all-mighty CV, the job search, the tenure file, and then policing one's colleagues and successors to make sure we all march in step. Still, despite the normalizing pressures of careers, the originating moral impetus is rarely vanquished, the sociological spirit cannot be extinguished so easily."   We are passionate folks and while we may sometimes get lost we find our way back to the discipline that grounds us. 

     After years of faculty meetings, assessment reports, stacks of papers to grade, budgets, schedules, search committees, chair reports, meetings to plan more meetings, and listening to colleagues complain about everything under the sun, I realized I no longer felt like a sociologist. My passion had gone on vacation and left no forwarding address. The only place I could even remotely connect with the part of myself was in the classroom. I had that link with sociology through my students and the passion I could see  developing in them.  I have been fortunate to have the most extraordinary students. (Many are even here today). Then one quiet day, as I sat shuffling papers at my desk a junior sociology major, Ascary Arias popped in. I knew that Ascary had recently returned from his hometown in Mexico after his first visit in many years. He told me how upset he was that kids there were still hungry, still had no shoes, still could not go to school, still were struggling as he did. He wanted to open a center for kids focused on improving health and education in Ixmiquilpan. Did I think it was possible? Would I be willing to help? I thought for a moment and said of course we can do that … while thinking to myself … how much time could it take?  With that simple nod of the head, I was off on a grand adventure, and what I found was my passion wasn't dead it was just hiding in Mexico.

     Now I'd like to share some of the faces and places that reminded me why I became a sociologist. 

    To continue, please click here for a PowerPoint presentation:  Link
 
 

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