Arlene Kaplan Daniels (1952)

UC Berkeley was a terrific opportunity in the late 40's. I came to Berkeley, to get away from home. I was poor, but it only cost twenty - five dollars a semester. As an undergraduate English major, I stumbled into graduate school through my admiration for Tamotsu Shibutani. Fortunately, a characteristic of the department at that time was benign neglect. You prepared to take the exams anyway you wished, with the list of great books of sociology as your guide.

When I received my PhD in 1960 I was thrown on my own, searching for grants, interrupted by a brief stay at SF State College. But I made a happy landing at Northwestern University in l975 as a full Professor where I spent the next twenty years. I found I could use what I had learned, primarily from Shibutani and Blumer, especially abut the Chicago School, but also from Selvin, Bock and Nisbet, in my research and teaching.

I made my way in professional circles as editor and President of Social Problems, as council member and secretary of the American Sociological Association and as a founder and then president of Sociologists for Women in Society.

I valued my colleague and the opportunity to work with graduate students and produce PhDs at Northwestern. I produced a modest canon, using the qualitative and analytic methods learned in graduate school, to study the field of occupations and professions, and, the place of women in work.