Retiring Professor Joan Kahn Establishes New Fund to Support Future SOCY Students
After a 36-year career in the University of Maryland’s Department of Sociology (SOCY), Professor Joan Kahn will be retiring at the end of June.
"In addition to carrying out a productive research agenda, Joan Kahn has been a rock in the Department of Sociology,” said Jeff Lucas, SOCY Professor and Chair. “She has always stepped in where needed, contributed significantly to our training of students, and above all, cared deeply about the department. Her contributions will be missed."
Showcasing just how much she truly does care about the department and its students, Kahn recently gave a $50,000 gift to establish the Dr. Joan R. Kahn Endowed Graduate Research Support Fund in Sociology. The new fund will be used to offset research expenses associated with the completion of graduate students’ degree programs.
“The training of students has been among the most important parts of my career at UMD,” Kahn said. “There were many times where students ran up against budget constraints for their dissertations, and didn't have the funds to purchase the data they needed, so after thinking hard about how I could give to the department, I decided to create a fund that would allow students to apply for small pots of money to complete their work.”
Student Impact
Professor Kahn herself was one of the most important parts of her former students’ UMD careers, too.
“Joan is an amazing teacher. She has an ability to explain complex subjects—for example, how to calculate a life table—in a way that makes you confident you can do it. To this day I love life tables and can still do one by hand,” said Gladys Martinez, who received her Ph.D. in Sociology in 1998. “Joan not only taught me academic subjects, she also taught me the importance of being available to your students, of listening, of showing that you care, and how all that makes a difference."
“Joan supervised my dissertation, and what I still remember about her is her patience and positive energy,” Lekha Subaiya, SOCY Ph.D. ‘05 echoed. “She was always constructive, and it never mattered that she might have to repeat herself the very next time I stopped by to discuss my work. She would explain all over again, with the same level of enthusiasm. I try to remember how much this helped me when I advise students who are starting out.”
Another former student of Kahn’s actually played a part in Kahn’s next steps: Serving on the Population Reference Bureau’s (PRB) Board of Trustees.
“In my post-graduate and professional life, Joan is still advising me. She has graciously joined the board of my employer, Population Reference Bureau, and everyone—from board members to staff—are thrilled that we have her sharp mind contributing to our future,” said Diana Elliott, SOCY Ph.D. '08. “We recently had a board meeting and there was a table that our CEO designated the ‘Joan fan club’ because of how many former students she had launched professionally who were in attendance.”
Research Impact
Kahn’s “sharp mind” became so well-known and respected by both her students and her peers for two reasons: One, because of her work helping found the Maryland Population Research Center, and two, because of her insightful work with demography, which Kahn specifically described as “taking a lifecourse approach to understanding people’s lives.”
“Sometimes this has meant focusing on how early experiences influence outcomes later in life,” Kahn, a member of the Population Association of America, the American Sociological Association and the Gerontological Society of America, explained. “I’ve done work on financial strain and the impact of financial strain on health, for example, and we found some very interesting patterns that really help to support a lot of the theorizing about how stress relates to health.
“I also looked at whether women ever made up the differences of ‘the motherhood penalty’—that is, the sort of price women pay in terms of their job security, their job, their wages, and their career pathways if they have children— later in life, when they are over 50 years old,” Kahn, who fittingly once served on the Journal of Marriage and Family’s editorial board, went on. “What was so interesting was that in some ways, the effects were much weaker later in life, implying that yes, there was a narrowing of or reduction of the penalty, although it did vary depending on whether you look at wages or at occupations.”
Later in her career, Kahn’s research shifted to focus on intergenerational relationships and flows of support from adult children to aging parents, and aging parents to adult children.
“When you look back in the 1960s and ‘70s, when you had older generations living with their adult children, it was typically so the adult children could be caring for their aging parents. As you look later in the 1980s, ‘90s and into the 2000s, older generations began helping their adult children who were struggling in one way or another, or needing the benefit of some additional support,” explained kahn. “We certainly saw during COVID that there were a number of older adults who moved in with their adult children because their adult children were having financial issues or greater needs. Things really have changed a lot, and that's frankly what's made this whole field so interesting to me over time: There's this period of tremendous change, and it's very interesting to try to understand.”
Published on Wed, May 24, 2023 - 10:34AM