UpDate - Vol. 11, No.4, Page 3
September 26, 1991
Intriguing discipline; Associate provost accidentally found sociology

     Entering her senior year at Georgia State University in 1969,
Margaret Andersen had enough credits to make most of today's
undergraduates jealous.
     She needed just over 30 credits to graduate-having satisfied
almost all of the school's group requirements, as well as the
necessary electives. But then, there came an 11th hour change.
     She says she had been happy in her declared major, business
administration, but decided to change majors when she happened upon
an intriguing discipline.
     In an introductory course during the first semester of her
senior year, Andersen, the University's newly appointed associate
provost for academic affairs, says she "rather accidentally" found
sociology.
     One year and 30 credits later, Andersen graduated from Georgia
State with a bachelor's degree in sociology, as well as two minors
(one in computer science, another in literature).
     "I just loved sociology, was thrilled with it," she says, "and
I still am.
     "Sociology somewhat synthesized what, for me, was really a
quantitative, mathematical background, with the kinds of social and
political interests that I had as a young person in the late
1960s," she says.
     "My experience is not that unusual," continues Andersen, who
also is a professor of sociology and women's studies. "I like to
tell students this (story) because they're usually so concerned
about knowing what they are going to do at any given point."
     Today, Andersen has a lot of opportunities to relate her story
to undergraduates: As associate provost for academic affairs, she
oversees undergraduate education, including academic advisement, at
the University. As a result, she often meets with students who,
like herself years before, are concerned about academic progress
and their prospects for graduating.
     Andersen, who served as acting associate provost for
instruction for one year before assuming her new position on Sept.
1, says she saw sociology as very exciting, and as a career
opportunity. "I think people should be open to the possibilities
that unexpected changes bring because certainly they will encounter
them throughout life," she says.
     Just a few months after graduating with her bachelor's degree
from Georgia State in 1970, Andersen entered a graduate program in
sociology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where she
received her doctorate in sociology in 1976.
     Though she says she always worked hard in school, the years
leading up to her receipt of a doctorate were not always easy.
     In a New Student Convocation address two years ago, Andersen
told the class of 1993 that she failed a course in honors calculus
during her freshman year at Emory University.
     Now, Andersen says she was "pretty devastated" by her failure
in the course.
     "I was in school on a full scholarship and my family was not
financially well off, so once I failed my math course, I lost my
scholarship," she says. "It changed the course of my life and I
thought it was going to be just disastrous. When I look back on it,
you know, it probably changed it for the better."
     After Emory, Andersen says she transferred to Georgia State,
where she worked full time to pay her tuition. She worked as a
department secretary at the university and took classes early in
the morning, in the evenings and during her lunch hour. Sometimes,
she says, she would take vacation toward the end of semesters to
write papers and study for exams.
     Like her quest for a major, Andersen says her freshman-year
failure was educational. "I think it's important for people to know
that you can recover from what, at the time, seem like devastating
mistakes in life," she says.
     Andersen, who arrived at Delaware as an instructor in 1974,
says she was hired as an expert in American race relations (the
subject of her graduate research) but also had an interest in
women's studies.
     In 1981, as an assistant professor of sociology, Andersen was
appointed director of the Women's Studies Interdisciplinary
Program, a position she held until 1985. She describes her years as
the program's director as one of the most enjoyable experiences she
has had at the University.
     "I was very happy to be in a leadership position in the
women's studies program," Andersen says, "because I think it was a
period of time when the program really acquired the academic
respect of faculty and administrators on campus."
     Andersen, whose book, Thinking About Women: Sociological
Perspectives on Race and Gender, has sold more than 20,000 copies
over two editions, says that, as women's studies' director, she
helped facilitate the annual research on racism seminar, which
continues today.
      She also coordinated a number of faculty development programs
that were designed to encourage professors in every discipline to
integrate race and gender issues into their courses.
     More recently, Andersen says she found "enormous satisfaction"
as co-director of the American Sociological Association's Minority
Opportunity Summer Training program (MOST), which met on campus in
1990 and 1991.
     Along with Carole Marks, associate professor of black American
studies, Andersen taught a group of 15 gifted minority college
seniors in a seminar on sociological theory and research. The
students were chosen, in part, for their interest in sociology as
a field of future study.
     "The MOST program is one of the most satisfying working
experiences that I've ever had," Andersen says. "It is a wonderful
teaching experience because these are students who are incredibly
bright and imaginative, who are also taking a critical perspective
on sociology as a field and on the problems of racial inequality
that we face in our society."
     A member of the University Budget Council, Andersen says her
duties as associate provost for academic affairs include examining
budgetary issues, assisting in the review of faculty for promotion
and tenure and promoting excellence in teaching on campus.
     Currently, she is chairperson of the University's Middle
States Accreditation Steering Committee.
     Middle States is an accrediting group for institutions of
higher education that has recognized the University of Delaware in
each of its once-a-decade reviews since 1921, Andersen says.
      Andersen, who serves as an editor of the sociological
journal, Gender and Society, says she works extensively on academic
advisement on campus.
     A workshop on academic advisement for all new faculty members
will take place at the end of the month, she says. A similar
program is being planned for October for all interested faculty.
     "We're hoping that, by working with new and incoming faculty,
we will be able to promote the skills necessary for good
advisement," Andersen says.
     "There are really two dimensions to advisement, as I see it,"
she says. "At the simplest level, there is informing students of
the rules and regulations and procedures. Then there's the more
important aspect of advisement, which, I think, is developing a
strong mentoring relationship with students.
     "Students who report positive experiences don't talk about
learning the rules so much as they talk about the importance of
having a faculty member who really took a direct interest in them."
     Andersen, who won an Excellence-in-Teaching Award from the
University in 1980, says a major challenge she faces as associate
provost is being able to continue teaching, something she is not
doing this semester but plans to resume next semester.
     "My feeling is that the provost's office should really set a
standard for faculty performance," she says. "One of the things I
personally hope to accomplish is to provide vision and leadership
that will help the University meet its own academic objectives, and
to keep up my own scholarship and teaching.
     "Andersen's scholarly research certainly doesn't seem to be
slowing down. Author of more than 15 journal articles since 1980,
she is awaiting publication of three books within the next year,
and is under contract to co-author another.
     Next month, Wadsworth Publishing will print Race, Class and
Gender: An Anthology, which she co-edited with Patricia Hill
Collins, who is a professor of African American studies at the
University of Cincinnati.
     By the end of the year, the second edition of Social Problems,
which she co-authored with University sociology professor Frank
Scarpitti, will be published by Harper Collins.
     In 1992, the third edition of Andersen's Thinking About Women:
Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender is scheduled to be
published by Macmillan.

                                        - Stephen M. Steenkamer