The Graduate Center community is deeply saddened by the loss of Dr. William (Jock) Young, Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice and Sociology, who passed away on November 16 after a long illness. The Graduate Center and the Ph.D. programs in Criminal Justice and Sociology have lost a valued colleague and celebrated scholar.
We invite friends, colleagues, and students to share memories and stories of Jock in the comments below.
Very sad news. Please indulge my personal anecdote about Jock Young. I did not know him personally before, and did not originally realize he had been appointed to the GC. Until one night, after my evening history of psychology class, I happened upon his name on his open office door. I introduced myself and we had a great rap. I told him how as an undergraduate at the University of Edinburgh in the early seventies I had been more or less fixed on the academic pursuit of Greek Ethics. The two girls I shared an apartment with at the time were both doing sociology, which was very popular in those days. One evening I happened to pick up one their books, which was Jock’s ‘The Social Meaning of Drug Use.’ I was fascinated by the subject matter––we all were in those days––but even more fascinated by the thought that it could be socially constituted. I immediately read the book from cover to cover, and it blew my mind, as we used to say in those days. The next semester I abandoned Greek Ethics for the Philosophy of Social Science, and began my own life long pursuit of the meaning of the social. I will always be grateful that I got the opportunity to thank him personally for that. Great man, and a great loss.
Professor John D Greenwood
PhD/MA Program in Philosophy, Graduate Center PhD Program in Psychology (Clinical), City College and Graduate Center Deputy Executive Officer PhD/MA Program in Philosophy, Graduate Center City University of New York