Sociology Lecturer At Canterbury University

Press, Volume C, Issue 29685, 1 December 1961, Page 20

Sociology Lecturer At Canterbury University

Among the many lecturers who have come to the University of Canterbury in the last few years, few have had a more colourful career than Dr. J. J. Mol, who has been appointed the first lecturer in sociology. He was born in ZS22 at Roeenburg, Holland. where he received his high school and college education. He studied economics at Amsterdam University until he was imprisoned in German concentration and prison camps from 1943 to 1945 for his activities with the underground. After the war Dr. Mol worked in England and Scotland for some time and then returned to Holland as assistant administrative executive for the largest farmers’ cooperative to the Dutch sugarbeet industry. In 1948 Dr. Mol went to Australia where he graduated from the United Theological Seminary in Sydney in 1951 and received the Kenneth Edwards prize for the best student to theology. He was appointed chaplain to Dutch immigrants and was then ordained by the Presbytery of Bathurst in 1952. Received by Queen Invited to Holland to recruit Dutch licentiates for

the Australia ministry, Dr. Mol and his wife were received by Queen Juliana for a long interview. While in Holland he was offered a scholarship ait Princeton University in the United States, and in 1955 was awarded the McFadden fellowship at the Union Theological Seminary to New York. In 1956 he accepted

the pastorate oi the Bethel Presbyterian Church, which has a congregation of more than 800, ii New York. ■ From 1955 to 1960 Dr. Mo' worked for bis doctorate it sociology ait Columbia Univeraity. New York, coverin* such fields as sociological theory, social change, historical sociology and religious institutions, sociological analysis and statistics, and th« sociology of communications He studied under scholars ol international reputation anc was awarded his doctorate it philosophy to 1860. Dr. Mol has been a prolific writer. His PhD. thesis was on "Theology and Americanism," and many ol his other works concerned the interactional patterns ol religion and adjustment among immigrants. He is the author of the book, “Churches and Immigrants,” published in collaboration with . the World Council of Churches. Dr. Mol—Dutch by birth, naturalised in Australia, and now living in New York—will thus bring a great variety ol experience to his new poet His wife is an Australian and a graduate of Sydney University. Sociology is taught within the psychology department ol the University of Canterbury. Stage I, which wae first

offered to 1968. has about 100 students this year, and stage n, introduced this year, has about 14 students. Dr. Mol is the first lecturer specialising to the subject