UQ will host a public lecture next month to honour the legacy of the late Emeritus Professor John Western AM – the founding father of sociology at the University.
Professor Western arrived at UQ in the early 1960s after obtaining his PhD from Columbia University and was instrumental in building and establishing the new discipline.
Head of the School of Social Science Professor David Trigger paid tribute to his former colleague and said his work gave UQ sociology the reputation it has today.
“His work was empirical, quantitative, collaborative, and team-based. In the early days these were all distinctive characteristics, and still distinguish UQ sociology at a national level,” Professor Trigger said.
“Having known John as a mentor and much later as a colleague, I was personally inspired by his enthusiasm for academic research and passion for engagement with the broader society.
“His work lives on in sociology at The University of Queensland and more generally throughout the discipline.”
Professor Western passed away on January 6 this year, but his legacy will continue through the work of his two sons, Mark and Bruce, who are both sociologists – Mark is the Director of UQ’s Institute for Social Science Research, and Bruce is Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.
“He worked to establish core research findings for Australia in areas such as political behaviour, mass media, and the sociology of work, crime, education and the professions. His work also frequently involved PhD students and junior colleagues and he graduated more than 50 PhD students throughout his career,” Mark said.
To promote academic exchange and interaction, Professor Western formed, with international colleagues, the Asia Pacific Sociological Association and served as its Foundation President from 1996–1999.
He was the first professor of sociology at UQ and became Head of the Department of Anthropology and Sociology in 1970. Even in his retirement he continued to be an active researcher, writer and doctoral supervisor.
Professor Western made prolific contributions to basic and applied research, publishing more than 50 books, monographs and commissioned reports, 70 book chapters and 120 journal articles.
He also secured millions of dollars in research grants and contracts and built one of the largest and most successful sociology departments in the country.
For his services to the development of sociology nationally and internationally, Professor
Western was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1984, and was elected to the Swiss Academy of Development in 1989.
In 2009 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for contributions to education and to sociology.
Paying tribute to his life’s work, the inaugural John Western Memorial Lecture will feature guest speaker Professor John Braithwaite, an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and Founder of RegNet (the Regulatory Institutions Network) at the Australian National University, who will present on the topic of “Western Realism and Romanticism”.
Professor Braithwaite is a graduate of The University of Queensland, one of Australia’s leading criminologists and his influential research boasts a worldwide reputation.
The John Western Memorial Lecture will be held at UQ on Wednesday, 28 September from 6pm–8pm, including refreshments to follow the lecture at 7pm, in the Auditorium, Level 2, Sir Llew Edwards Building (14), St Lucia.
Please send RSVPs to Cassandra Mellor (c.mellor@uq.edu.au, 07 3346 7344) by Friday September 23.
Media: Professor Mark Western (07 3346 7344, m.western@uq.edu.au)
