Professor of Sociology to Receive Honorary Degree at Northwestern
December 2005
Dr. Elijah Anderson, the Charles and William L. Day Distinguished Professor of Social Sciences and professor of sociology, has been chosen to receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Science at Northwestern University. The degree will be awarded for “distinguished accomplishments” at the university’s commencement on June 16, 2006. Dr. Anderson earned a doctorate in sociology from Northwestern in 1976.
An expert on the sociology of black America, Dr. Anderson is the author of the classic sociological work A Place on the Corner: A Study of Black Street Corner Men and numerous articles on the black experience. His ethnographic study Streetwise: Race, Class and Change in an Urban Community won the Robert E. Park Award for the best book in the area of urban sociology from the American Sociological Association. He is also the author of The Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. A winner of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching at Penn, Dr. Anderson is director of the Philadelphia Ethnography Project, associate editor of Qualitative Sociology and other professional journals, a member of the board of directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and vice president of the American Sociological Association. His other areas of interest include the social psychology of organizations, field methods of social research, social interaction and social organization.