University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Department of Sociology | University of Illinois Archives

In 1893, the committee on instruction recommended the appointment of David Kinley as assistant professor of political economy and social science.¹ In 1895 the Trustees voted to ask the legislature for increased funding for use in "building up the departments of history and of social science and economics."² Until 1907, when the Trustees created a professorship of Sociology³ and courses were first listed under a Department of Sociology,⁴ sociology courses were listed under the Department of Economics.⁵ In 1948 the Trustees authorized the change of name of the Department of Sociology to the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.⁶ On the recommendation of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Urbana Senate, the Trustees approved the separation of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology into two separate departments in 1959.⁷

1. Board of Trustees Transactions, 17th Report, July 5, 1893, p. 128.

2. Board of Trustees Transactions, 18th Report, January 10, 1895, p. 59.

3. Board of Trustees Transactions, 24th Report, July 20, 1907, p. 163.

4. Catalogs and Registers, 1907-08, p. 242, lists courses under the Department of Sociology. Until this time, Catalogs and Registers and Board of Trustees Transactions contained no reference to a department of this name.

5. See Board of Trustees Transactions and Catalogs and Registers, 1893 ff., for references to sociology courses within the Department of Economics.

6. Board of Trustees Transactions, 43rd Report, July 2, 1948, p. 17.

7. Board of Trustees Transactions, 50th Report, May 16, 1959, p. 406.