1948-2025
On January 4, 2025, the Sociology and Anthropology Department and Providence College lost an esteemed and talented colleague and administrator. Lena joined the department as an assistant professor of sociology in September 1974. A graduate of Notre Dame University in Indiana and the University of Connecticut where he earned his doctorate in sociology, Lena became a valued teacher, colleague, and friend to many during his years as a full-time faculty member, rising to the rank of professor of sociology during his teaching career.
A gentle man and balanced thinker, Lena routinely impressed colleagues with his thoughtful comments during department meetings or when asked for his opinion during conversations with colleagues both inside and outside the department. He always greeted others on campus with a smile and his full attention.
Lena developed a routine of arriving very early on campus, even before colleagues who taught 8:30 a.m. classes. One day, just after the sun rose, he was chased by a coyote in the parking lot! He loved Providence College (PC) and teaching his students. In addition to Introduction to Sociology, Lena developed and taught the courses Sociology of Organizations and Sociology of Medicine on a regular basis. In addition to teaching PC undergraduates, Lena also taught nursing students from nearby Fatima Hospital in North Providence.
Lena also made many contributions outside of the Sociology and Anthropology Department, primarily through his work on college committees and in the Faculty Senate. As a Faculty Senate member, and later as its president, Lena was always the person who could remember past legislation.
In 2004, Lena was appointed Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Subsequently, he was appointed as the first, and longest-serving Provost at Providence College. Hugh retired as Provost Emerita in 2020 and spent two years involved in a leadership program at his beloved Alma Mater, Notre Dame. Upon his return to Rhode Island, Lena was seen from time to time on campus where he enjoyed interacting with former colleagues in the Emeriti Suite and going for lunch at nearby restaurants with other retired faculty.
Lena will be missed by his colleagues in the Sociology and Anthropology Department and by many other members of the Providence College community.
Eric Hirsch and Josephine Ruggiero (Emeritus), Providence College
1948-2024
Robert Zussman died from lung cancer on November 27, 2024, at his home in Northampton, MA. He engaged many of us in sociology, whether as friend, teacher, editor, interrogator, or intellectual assailant. With his wit and keen powers of observation, he forced us to think about the world around us, which is never quite as it seems. His sociological imagination was vivid and relentless.
After receiving his PhD from Columbia University in 1982, Zussman taught there for five years. He taught at SUNY Stony Brook, 1987-1997, after which he moved to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where his wife Naomi Gerstel had been teaching for 20 years. He retired in 2014.
Zussman was the author and editor of several books. He authored the prize-winning Mechanics of the Middle Class: Work and Politics Among American Engineers (University of California Press 1985), about the political views of engineers, and Intensive Care: Medical Ethics and the Medical Profession (University of Chicago Press 1994), on ethical dilemmas and decisions in intensive care units, as well as several articles on what he called “autobiographical occasions,” when people are called upon to sum up their lives and accomplishments. He coedited Narrative Sociology (Vanderbilt University Press 2019) with Leslie Irvine and Jennifer Pierce and Public Sociology: Fifteen Eminent Sociologists Debate Politics and the Profession in the Twenty-first Century (University of California Press 2007) with Dan Clawson, Joya Misra, Naomi Gerstel, Randall Stokes, Douglas L. Anderton, and Michael Burawoy.
As a lifelong Yankees fan, it is fitting that Zussman’s last book, Yankelytics (self-published), a combination of memoir, social science, and statistics, was published online just before his death. For better or worse, he lived long enough to see the Yankees’ “worst inning ever,” in the fifth and final game of the 2024 World Series.
Zussman was an active member of the American Sociological Association as well as the Eastern Sociological Society, for which he served as president from 2011-2012. He was a member and chair of the ASA Publications Committee, 2009-2012, and, along with several University of Massachusetts colleagues, edited the ASA Rose Series in Sociology monographs for five years. Outside the ASA, he was editor of Qualitative Sociology, 1999-2004, providing close guidance and editing to many grateful authors. He was unusually generous in the unsung role of manuscript reviewer; Christine Williams wrote to me, “Receiving a review from Robert is like having the very best dinner party conversation: provocative, challenging, and fun. I laugh when I read his reviews! He brought humanity to an inhumane process. Robert taught many of us how to be better writers and better reviewers, and in this unsung way, vastly improved sociology.”
Zussman was not an easy-going, affable type (he liked “curmudgeonly”), so friendship with him felt precious and profound. He was always honest, sometimes awkwardly so. He was calm and gentle, even if his arguments managed to perturb others. He took nothing for granted.
He was keen on the limits of social scientific methods. “Beware of small sample sizes” was one of his favorite aphorisms, although he also saw the potential arrogance of large samples. “It depends” was another of his go-to observations that for him summed up sociology.
Zussman loved to travel and brought a characteristically quirky approach to it. He loved going far away, the more flights required the better, especially if frequent flyer miles were involved. He treasured beaches with cows on them; he liked saying “Chiang Mai” and “Hampi.” Domestic travel was a means to embrace weird popular culture; he loved amusement parks, circus museums, the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta, and the mermaids of Weeki Wachee (Florida). His favorite ride at Disneyworld was Spiderman, and he could never resist greasy, all-you-can-eat buffets.
After years of worsening COPD, Zussman was diagnosed with lung cancer in late May 2024. The mass was already large, and doctors told him he had a few days to a few weeks to live. Never one to take doctors’ opinions as the final word, he survived, albeit bedridden, for another five months. His concise last words: “Enough said.”
James M. Jasper (Emeritus), Graduate Center of the City University of New York
