Sociology Faculty Moves To Offer Jencks Tenure

The Sociology Department has recommended tenure for Christopher S. Jencks '58, lecturer in Sociology whose recent book, Inequality, challenges traditional notions of education and mobility.

Faculty sources told The Crimson yesterday of the Sociology Department's recommendation but senior Faculty members in the Sociology Department would not comment on the decision.

However, Franklin L. Ford, acting dean of the Faculty, said yesterday that the Department is in the process of setting up an ad hoc committee to review the recommendation.

The ad hoc committee will study Jencks's qualifications and then submit a report to the President who will make the final decision.

Jencks said yesterday that he will decide whether to accept the tenured appointment when he sees the terms of the offer.

Jencks, who is also an associate professor of Education, has done most of his teaching and research at the School of Education, but said that recently his interests have shifted from education to sociology.

He explained that up to this point, the Sociology Department has not had to worry about offering him a position in the Department because of his affiliation with the Ed School. However, he said that he and the Ed School have "come to a parting of ways." Therefore, he will only remain at Harvard if the Sociology Department gives him a tenured position, he said.

David Riesman '31, Ford Professor of Social Sciences, said yesterday that Jencks "has an extraordinary range of abilities and is a fully capable and thoughtful writer." Riesman said that Jencks's interest in education goes back to his undergraduate days when Jencks wrote a paper on education for Riesman's course, Soc Sci 136, "Character and Social Structure in America."

Jenck's book, Inequality, published in June 1972, concludes that if American schools could be reformed to insure an equal education for every individual, opportunities for wealth and occupations would still be unequal.

Jencks also states in Inequality that IQ scores, genes and the quality of school education have little effect on the future economic success of individuals.

Jencks co-authored Inequality with his colleagues in the Center for Educational Policy Research at Harvard.