Richard Arum (1992)

After finishing college in 1985, I received a Masters of Education in Teaching and Curriculum and worked for a half-dozen years in urban public education. In 1992, I entered the graduate program in Sociology at Berkeley with the intention of developing the analytic skills necessary to engage in policy debates around education. I completed my degree in 1996 as a result of the mentorship provided by faculty in the Department, particularly the efforts of Neil Fligstein and Mike Hout. Effective graduate education typically involves two components: interactions with peers and apprenticeship with specialists in crafts production. Berkeley provided me generous opportunities on both these dimensions. In addition to working with Mike and Neil, I also benefited from my involvement with the extraordinarily impressive graduate students there as well as with faculty such as Claude Fischer, Leo Goodman, Arlie Hochschild, Sam Lucas, Martin Sanchez-Jankowski, Neil Smelser, Ann Swidler, Kim Voss and Loic Wacquant. Following my training at Berkeley, I worked as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona (1996-2000) and am currently employed as an Associate Professor with positions jointly held in Education and Sociology at New York University. My work continues to focus mainly on education and is situated in the intersection of social stratification and the sociology of organizations.