Sociology at the University of Ceylon*

Social Affairs. Vol.1 No.7, 105-118, Fall 2017 Social Affairs: A Journal for the Social Sciences ISSN 2478-107X (online) www.socialaffairsjournal.com SOCIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CEYLON* H.L. Seneviratne** Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia, USA ABSTRACT For eight years after its establishment in 1948, the Department of Sociology remained in the ambiguous terrain of being both an independent department and a subordinate partner of the Economics Department. In that role Sociology supplied courses for students in Economics who wished to choose it as their ‘Special Subject’ within Economics. Sociology also supplied a few courses for the Sinhala and Philosophy departments. This paper narrates the story of how the two major figures to chair the Department of Sociology during this period contributed in their own ways to facilitate the passage of Sociology to the status of a degree-granting department, ending its ambiguous, anomalous, and liminal state. Key words: Sociology, Economics, Bryce Ryan, Ralph Pieris This paper is an account of the Department plight rooted in any statutory limitation but a of Sociology of the University of Ceylon in limitation of resources, in particular the want approximately the first decade of its existence. of adequate teaching staff. This may partly The most significant development during this have been due to the ‘late comer’ status of period was the transition of the department Sociology in relation to other disciplines, and a from one that provided courses for other related vicious circle of inadequate resources departments, in particular Economics, to and low enrollments. Being a subordinate one that awarded its own degrees, making partner of Economics was also a part of the it a full-fledged and autonomous entity. The legacy of the department’s structural origin in inability to grant its own degrees was not a the model of British universities. The oldest *I wish to thank Bradman Weerakoon, R.S. generosity in making valuable documents available Perinbanayagam, Ranjini Obeyesekere, Laksiri to me. Jayasuriya, Tissa Fernando, P.A.S.Saram, and P. Weerasekera for sharing with me bits of useful **Author e-mail: information about the sociology department [email protected] in its early era. Kitsiri Malalgoda, Amarasiri de Silva, and Tissa Jayatilake made comments that ©2017 Social Affairs Journal. This work is enabled me to vastly improve the paper. Thanks licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- to Philip McEldowney for outstanding bibliographic NonCommercial 4.0 International License. assistance, and to John Rogers for his extraordinary -105- Social Affairs. Vol.1 No.7, 105-118, Fall 2017 Department of Sociology in the UK was at of unifying the Americas against the Axis the London School of Economics (LSE) and Powers, and adopted in the post war era only goes back to the beginning of the 20th as a general feature of US foreign policy. It century; and it started as a subsidiary of the is possible that the appointment of Ryan as Economics Department. This paper makes Professor and Chairman of the Department an attempt to assess the relative contribution of Sociology was made financially feasible of the two major figures that strived in their by his concurrent service as Consultant for own ways to the progress of the department the Division of Medicine and Public Health of towards achieving full-fledged status as a the Rockefeller Foundation during the same department that granted its own degrees. period (1948-52). It is also possible that funds came from the Smith-Mundt programme Sociology began as an academic discipline just established by the US Information and in Sri Lanka, then Ceylon, in the academic Educational Exchange Act of 1948 (Public year 1948-49, when it was added to the list Law 80-402). The appointment of C.H. Mac of ‘Special Subjects’ available for students Fadden, Professor of Geography, University reading Economics (Report1 1949, p. 11). of California to the Department of Geography According to one of the students in that class, for the academic year 1950-51 gives us the iconic public servant Bradman Weerakoon a clue. “Application was made [by the (student years 1949-52), the class consisted University] for his [Mac Fadden’s] services of approximately 10 students. They were through the American Embassy with the required to take three Sociology courses, Smith-Mundt Act which empowers the State one of which was on Methods (Weerakoon, Department to subsidise the employment of December 2, 2017)2. Eight year later, in the American professors as visiting professors academic year 1956-57, 12 students were in universities, outside the United States. admitted to a newly crafted programme The University pays an ordinary professorial leading to a degree in Sociology independent salary, while the cost of transportation and the of Economics. After taking eight prescribed difference between an American professorial courses and the final examination they salary and a Ceylon salary are met out of were awarded their degrees, the first ever funds provided by the Congress” (Report in Sociology, in 1959. In addition to the eight 1950, p. 3). papers based on the prescribed courses, the final examination included a ninth paper, an While this arrangement may have been a essay on a topic selected from the several possibility, Ryan’s appointment was different provided3. in several ways. First, the process described above applied to visiting positions that typically Although by the 1940s several individual were one-year appointments, whereas Ceylonese had some exposure to the subject Ryan’s, with its open tenure, resembled more in their studies overseas, Sociology in Sri a permanent appointment. Ryan held the Lanka formally began with the appointment Chair of Sociology since 1948, the year of its of the American sociologist, Bryce Ryan inception. His departure in 1952 was due to as Professor of Sociology at the University his resignation rather than any condition of of Ceylon. The factors involved in bringing his employment. Second, while the steady about this appointment, including the relative stream of American scholars that followed roles played by Ryan and the University are Ryan to the University of Ceylon consisted unclear. The enabling broad context however of recruits to established departments like seems to have been ‘cultural diplomacy’ that Economics, History, Geography, Literature, began in the World War II years as a way and the Sciences, Ryan’s assignment -106- Sociology at the University of Ceylon H.L.Seneviratne included the founding of an altogether new dimension was Ryan’s conception of department. While I do not at present have academic work as being tied up with and any documentary or other verifiable source to relevant to the pragmatic needs of society. support this, incidental evidence suggests that This again was rooted in the pragmatic the Vice Chancellor Sir Ivor Jennings was keen manner in which research was intertwined to establish Sociology as part of the curriculum with social utility in the American academe, of his university. This is a possibility altogether particularly the land grant universities. in keeping with Sir Ivor’s well-documented Bryce Ryan, the founder of Sociology at the dedication to the cause of founding a first rate University of Ceylon, and thereby in the island, university. Accordingly, he may have thought was born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1911. Prior it only fitting that the emerging new field of to accepting his position at the University of Sociology be represented in the university. As Ceylon he worked in research and teaching a social scientist, both as well as a university positions including that of Assistant Professor administrator, he would have been familiar at Rutgers University, which was to later with the emergence of Sociology in the publish his major work on Ceylon (Ryan academic scene in the UK as represented by 1953). After his four-year tenure at the its major universities, in particular the London University of Ceylon, he worked for two years School of Economics. (1952-54) at the Department of Sociology and The exact details of Ryan’s assignment are Anthropology, Cornell University as Visiting not mentioned in the only publicly available Professor specializing in non-Western source, the Reports of the Council of the cultures. He did one more stint in this migratory University. These details, if at all, are available career, a brief one-year tenure at Wayne only in the minutes and other records of the State University, Detroit, before settling down senior university officials and of the relevant at the University of Miami at Coral Gables, bodies. We can however reasonably assume where he was Professor and Chairman of the that Ryan had all the authority and the Department of Sociology until his retirement discretion to carry out the responsibilities of in 1977. He rose to national prominence with “Professor and Chairman” as he is sometimes the publication in January 1950, jointly with referred to in the Council Reports. We can Neal C. Gross, a paper titled ‘Acceptance and equally reasonably assume that he carried Diffusion of Hybrid Corn Seed in Two Iowa with him the American conception of academic Communities’ (Ryan and Gross 1950). (Ryan freedom that allowed him substantial leeway lists this work in the Eighth Annual Report of to make his own decisions about how much the Council of the University of Ceylon, 1949, ‘administration’ he did and how much teaching under its pre-publication title ‘Cultural Factors and research, and how he combined the latter in the Diffusion of Hybrid Seed Corn’). The two. Looking at his record of work during his ‘diffusion of innovations paradigm’ the paper tenure it appears that teaching and research expounded became highly influential among enjoyed priority over administration, which in American scholars of Rural Sociology, the existing context included the initiative, and leading to some 4000 research publications.

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