Whither the decline?

Abstract

In the fall of 1969 we arrived in St. Louis, ready to begin our freshman year at Washington University. Over the course of the next four years there we experi enced Kent State, the student revolution, the search for meaning, the search for identity, and the search for a future. It was at Washington University that we discovered and fell in love with each other and with sociology, making a lifetime commitment to both. By the time we graduated in the spring of 1973, we had formed a cohesive community of close friends, and a solid base for our future sociological careers. In the fall of 1986 we returned to St. Louis, this time as visiting professors in the department where we had been undergraduates thirteen years earlier. We spent a productive year there and were tempted to settle in St. Louis permanently (we were offered two tenure-track jobs), but ultimately moved on at the end of the year because the department's future prospects were so uncertain. Its dissolution was announced shortly after we left. In thinking about and analyzing the meaning and significance of the depart ment's closure, we will attempt to draw upon the two periods of time that we were there, the two diverse roles that we occupied, and the distinct perspectives encompassed within those roles. As undergraduates, we knew little of either the politics or reputation of the department. We were thus unaware of the department's international prominence and of the internal battles that had fragmented it only the year before, sending many of its leading faculty members fleeing to other schools. Alvin Gouldner, one of the remaining scholars, was in Amsterdam, leaving only the conspicuous sign,