Skip to main content
Skip to main menu Skip to spotlight region Skip to secondary region Skip to UGA region Skip to Tertiary region Skip to Quaternary region Skip to unit footer

Slideshow

Joseph C. Hermanowicz

Blurred image of the arch used as background for stylistic purposes.
Professor

Joseph C. Hermanowicz (American pronunciation Her/mán/o/whiz; alternatively Heirman/ó/vich) specializes in the study of higher education.  His work focuses on higher education faculty, students, and institutions.  A program of his research combines a concern for professions with inquiry into the life course to examine academic careers, how they are experienced over time, and how they are conditioned by organizations.  His studies span topics across the stratification of careers, work satisfaction and identity, adult socialization, the meanings of age, conceptions of merit, aspiration, and achievement, the operation of reward systems, graduate education and training, undergraduate attrition, and social-organizational problems of universities and the academic profession. 

In addition to higher education, Hermanowicz's work is tied to several substantive areas: professions and occupations, organizational culture, life course studies, the sociology of science, and social psychology.  Methodologically, his work is situated in qualitative techniques, and has ranged across interviews, case studies, and biographical life histories.  His work has helped to develop longitudinal applications to qualitatively-based interviewing.

The recipient of awards for both his research and his teaching, Hermanowicz is the author of The Stars Are Not Enough: Scientists—Their Passions and Professions (University of Chicago Press, 1998), Lives in Science: How Institutions Affect Academic Careers (University of Chicago Press, 2009), College Attrition at American Research Universities: Comparative Case Studies (Agathon, 2003), as well as articles and chapters in the sociology of higher education.  He is the editor of Challenges to Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021) and The American Academic Profession: Transformation in Contemporary Higher Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).

He earned bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago. 

Education:
  • Ph.D., Sociology, University of Chicago, 1996
  • A.M.,  Sociology, University of Chicago, 1993
  • A.B. (Honors), University of Chicago, 1990
Of Note:
  • Sandy Beaver Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Georgia
  • Professor Recognition Award, Student Government Association, University of Georgia
  • Outstanding Publication Award, Section on Aging and the Life Course, American Sociological Association
Articles Featuring Joseph C. Hermanowicz

Joe Hermanowicz was recently elected to the Sociological Research Association. This highly selective society of sociological scholars was founded in 1936.

Ron Simons is being honored for distinguished contributions to sociology, criminology, and health, particularly for life-course explanations for racial…

A must-read collection on contemporary threats to academic freedom.