“We need to go beyond pathology, and study the family in its great variety, in its social context and its impact upon the economy, law, education – perhaps even upon religious thinking and practice.”
Richard Hey
Prior to joining Gerry Neubeck in 1964 on a marriage counseling post-doctoral program in the Minnesota Family Study Center, I headed the Family Life Education Program at the Marriage Council of Philadelphia in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. When the Family Study Center’s grant was terminated in 1970, I joined FSoS as Department Head.
Questions which would not be quieted about the work in both those settings centered around why, of the five universal social institutions, the family -the “basic social institution” – was the only one which had never developed an academic major and respectability as a field of graduate study. One could major in and identify oneself with government, economics, education, and religion, but the family was determinedly treated as contingent. FSoS offered the opportunity to explore some answers.
FSoS was strategically located in CHE which, at the time, had defined itself as multidisciplinary in its consumption of theory and research. In 1970, FSoS did not seem to have a clearly identifiable academic goal. It was, rather, a collection of courses, all designed NOT to challenge offerings in Sociology, Psychology, Anthropology, Economics, and Child Development. Our autonomy was accepted in only one area: Management. At last, we were an identified academic unit.
As Department Head, I based my actions on three assumptions: it was time to assert that the family is a legitimate subject for academic study; family study is a multidisciplinary enterprise; and, family scholars should be well-grounded, well-rounded, and able to understand both research and service. Therefore, we resisted defining “programs” within the department. We met opposition from other University departments which interpreted our development as incursions into their territories. Nevertheless, our efforts began to attract students, some of whom had been accepted into other departments. Some students were told by other departments’ faculty that they were “smart enough not to have to register in FSoS!
In the last twenty-five years, FSoS has become a recognized center of excellence in the family field and designated as a graduate degree program in its own right; college deans and central administration ceased to ask what and where Family Social Science might be. The critical mass of family scholars at the U of MN hastened acceptance of our approach, resulting in a positive force toward developing theory, research, and methodology in family studies. We need to go beyond pathology, and study the family in its great variety, in its social context and its impact upon the economy, law, education – perhaps even upon religious thinking and practice.
I am of the opinion that the need [today] is to develop scholar-practitioners. In light of increasing rapidity of change and intercultural confrontations there is much work ahead. We are in much the same situation as Alice, when the Red Queen told her she would have to run like everything just to stay where she was! I hope the next twenty-five years will be as stimulating and as much fun as the past twenty-five have been for me.