If you have been involved in Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) for any period of time during the past 28 years, you benefited from the generous service of Dennis R. McSeveney, PhD—whether you knew it or not.
This past August, during the 2024 meetings for the American Sociological Association, we celebrated Dr. McSeveney’s retirement from AKD with a service award presented to him during our annual Distinguished Lecture and Award Presentation. We recently reached out to Dr. McSeveney to keep the celebration going with an interview on his 28 years of service for the newly established AKD blog. Please continue reading below to learn more Dr. McSeveney and about the tremendous service he provided to AKD over the past 28 years!
Meet Dennis R. McSeveney, PhD
Dr. McSeveney is a Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Emeritus, and Associate Provost Emeritus at the University of New Orleans. He was inducted into AKD in 1968 while he was a graduate student at Emory University. He became a member of AKD’s Council in 1997 when he took on the role of AKD’s Representative to the Association of College Honor Societies (ACHS). McSeveney continued in that role until 2019, during which he became the President-Elect of AKD (2018-2020). In 2020, Dr. McSeveney was appointed the President of AKD, a role in which he served until 2022. Following, he served AKD as Past President from 2022 until 2024 when he officially retired from AKD.
While his service to AKD is nothing short of impressive, perhaps even more impressive is how many other organizations he served during the same time frame. From 2012 to 2014, he served two year-long terms as president of ACHS. During those years he was also served on the Board of Directors for ACHS and returned to the Board for another two year term in 2014. McSeveney has also served on the Board of Directors for the Urban League of Louisiana since 2009 and began serving as their elected Treasurer in 2011—two roles in which he still serves today. Further, Dr. McSeveney is a Founding Member of the Mid-South Sociological Association, and continues to be an active member today. He also served as their Secretary-Treasurer from 1983 to 1986, President-Elect from 1996 to 1997, and President from 1997 to 1998.
Now that we have taken a moment to introduce the incredible human and sociologist that is Dr. Dennis R. McSeveney, please continue reading as he reflects on 28 years with AKD!
Can you briefly tell the story of how you became involved in AKD 28 years ago?
I received my Bachelors of Science in Mathematics from John Carroll University. While teaching high school mathematics at St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio. I began working with adolescents in the community and that work led me to begin reading social psychology. I was intrigued by it and decided to switch disciplines. In Fall 1967, I enrolled in the Sociology program at Emory University. In Spring 1968, I was invited to join AKD and was inducted into Emory’s chapter, Beta of Georgia.
In January, 1972, I began my first university teaching position as an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Louisiana State University in New Orleans. [The name was changed to University of New Orleans (UNO) in the mid-1970s.] I was promoted through the academic ranks to Professor. I also served as Associate Dean (1980 – 1986) and Dean of the College Liberal Arts (1986 – 1990). I then returned to my faculty position in Sociology until 1998 when I became the Associate Provost at UNO.
J. Kenneth Davidson and I became friends and colleagues after we met at the meetings of the Southern Sociological Society. Ken was involved with AKD and served as AKD’s President in 1996 – 1997. Ken asked me if I would be interested in serving as AKD’s Representative to ACHS. He thought my administrative experience would be useful to both AKD and ACHS. Since I was then in a full-time faculty position, I accepted and was appointed to this position by AKD’s Council. I quickly saw the importance of AKD and ACHS in higher education. I didn’t expect to continue in that role for almost three decades, but grew ever more convinced that the honor society movement is a critical component in the success of the students we serve.
What have been some of your favorite memories during your nearly three decades with AKD?
There have been so many memories during my 28 years serving on AKD’s Council. The first thing that comes to mind are the people with whom I had the privilege of working. I will not try to list those that come to mind, but AKD has been fortunate to have had an incredible group of teacher-scholars who have volunteered their time and energy to make AKD a better organization.
Since the mid-1990s, AKD has become an increasingly student-focused organization. The Council regularly kicks around ideas to provide new and exciting programs for our student members. Each time an idea arises, the Council asks: (1) will this enhance the student experience? (2) can we afford it? And (3) do we have the people necessary to make it happen?
One example of how AKD operates is the Social Justice Award. In May 2020 during my term as AKD’s President, George Floyd was murdered. Many organizations were promulgating social justice statements. While AKD’s Council was preparing such a statement, one Council member noted that the words were fine, but where was the action? AKD decided to not only make a statement about social justice, but began its Social Justice Award program that “invites chapters to apply for funding to identify and implement meaningful change related to social justice.” The initial funds were awarded by the end of 2020 and the award-winning chapters began their work in Spring 2021. That program continues.
During the pandemic there was concern about how AKD could continue operating and serving our student members. AKD was able to pivot and continue our usual programming, but to enhance AKD’s programs and develop new ones. The Teaching and Learning Workshops went online, and the number of participants grew. At an Executive Committee meeting, one member suggested we try an Undergraduate Research Symposium via Zoom. AKD Council members stepped up, made it happen, and it continues as a day celebrating the original research of our student members. AKD also began a Graduate Student Lounge giving graduate students across the country an AKD sponsored opportunity to interact with each other. Finally, AKD’s President, Daphne Pedersen, led the effort to celebrate AKD’s 100th anniversary online.
One year I was appointed to serve on the Undergraduate Paper Awards Committee. I shuttered at the thought of reading more than fifty undergraduate research papers. When I began reading them, I became delighted by the quality of the work and the breadth of interests. Each of the years I served I thought that the work of our student members and their faculty advisors convinced me that the future of our discipline is in good hands.
As I began this response, AKD is fortunate to have a Council comprised of dedicated volunteers who are focused on providing a broad range of programs to recognize and honor the very best sociology students.
If someone were to ask you why AKD is an important organization for sociologists and their students, what would you tell them?
AKD is important for sociologists in faculty positions because our job is supposed to be both as both scholars and teachers. Recognizing the best and the brightest among our students is part of teaching. AKD helps us recognize these students. It also provides an avenue for students to work collaboratively, to grow their leadership skills, and contribute to the community. AKD can also contribute to the very survival of sociology majors and sociology departments. AKD chapters can be a factor in retaining and graduating students and university administrators – presidents, provosts, and deans – are, at least in part, evaluating on retention and graduation rates. NESE data makes it clear that the more students are connected to their university, the more likely they are to continue and graduate. AKD is one means through which students can connect to their campus and each other.
For students, connections to other students in their major can create lifelong friendships and networks and enhance their learning and the development of both their research and interpersonal skills. Undergraduate students who are members of an ACHS member honor society like AKD who are considering career opportunities in Federal government also benefit from a step increase in their first position and a significant increase in starting salary.
Finally, when Emory Borgadus created AKD in 1920 his purpose was to provide a means for “discussing research methods and findings and promoting scholarly writing.” AKD can help create an environment in which faculty and students can interact and collaborate without the barrier of the classroom.
How has your work with AKD impacted your overall career and scholarship as a sociologist?
I became an administrator early in my academic career, first as a department chair and then as an associate dean, dean, and associate provost. In each of them I believed that good university administrators needed to consider themselves faculty first even while serving in their administrative roles. However, as I moved from the department to the college-level, to university-level administration, the nature of the positions involved less and less direct contact with students. My involvement with AKD, both my campus chapter and on AKD’s Council, and ACHS enabled me to stay connected to students and sociology as a discipline.
These organizations also changed what and how I write and publish. With less time for quantitative research, I began to write about the history of the honor society movement and its impact on students. Most of my recent presentations have been about the history of the honor society movement and the history of AKD.
Over your career as a sociologist, what have been some of your most cherished moments?
My most cherished moments are oriented around the colleagues and students with whom I had the privilege of knowing and working. On the sad end if the continuum, I wrote the academic obituaries for two past presidents of AKD and another close colleague.
On the happy side, I have had students who went on to stellar careers taking their sociological imagination to other disciplines. One student went on to get a joint degree in public health and law, clerked for a U.S. Supreme Justice and before retiring served as the dean of three, different major law schools. We are still friends. Another student was in the first cohort of African American students at the Louisiana State University in New Orleans (now the University of New Orlean), first fully integrated university in the south. As he finished his degree at night, we would stay after class and talk. I have said of him in public, I was his professor, and he was my teacher.
After I retired and became emeritus, I had lunch with a former student who was deeply involved in our community seeking her advice on opportunities for social justice involved volunteer opportunities. She suggested I get involved with the Urban League of Louisiana, an affiliate of the National Urban League, a “nonpartisan historic civil rights organization . . . that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States.” I was appointed to the board and have been engaged in this work for almost twenty years. It has given me the opportunity to grow as a public sociologist.
Can you share a bit about what the introduction of an Executive Office for AKD entailed and why that move was so important for its future?
When I began serving as AKD’s Representative to ACHS, most attendees at the annual ACHS Council meeting were faculty members serving as leaders in honor societies. Over the year, I noted that some of the more impactful honor societies were transforming their leadership from part-time faculty secretary-treasurers to full-time executive directors. Meg Wilkes Karaker who was AKD’s President, Past President J. Kenneth Davidson, and I began talking about the future of AKD. At that time, Marc Matre, served as AKD’s very competent Secretary-Treasurer using space provided by his home campus, the University of South Alabama. Marc informed Meg that AKD’s office was, once again, being moved to another space and there would be delays in sending AKD materials to the chapters. Meg asked Ken and me to pay a site visit to AKD’s Executive Office and meet with Marc and make recommendations on how to restructure AKD’s Executive Office to meet the needs of a 21st Century honor society.
Ken and I recommended that AKD follow the model of a growing number of ACHS member honor societies with an Executive Office led by an Executive Director. We further recommended that during the transition, AKD retain the position of Secretary-Treasurer who would hire and supervise the Executive Office staff. The Council and the membership agreed with our recommendations and amended AKD’s Constitution to enable this transformation to happen.
Meg then recruited Jeff Chin, Professor of Sociology at Lemoyne College, to serve as Secretary-Treasurer. In 2009 after an ill-fated hire that Jeff quickly corrected, Jeff hired Bethany Titus as AKD’s Executive Director and Dawn Kinville as Chief Financial Officer. That leadership team immediately transformed AKD’s Executive Office increasing the number of programs offered to our members, making more AKD-logo items available to members, and improving the level of service to our chapter advisors and members. It was not always easy. Lemoyne College initially provided AKD with the space we needed. However, after a change in the college’s administration, AKD began to get bumped from space to space. Finally, AKD rented commercial office space in Syracuse. Even with the disruptions Bethany, Dawn, and Jeff kept the Executive Office functioning better than it ever had in my, at that time, forty plus years as an AKD member.
Bethany and other AKD Council members have become leaders within ACHS. Bethany has served on AKD committees and as a presenter at ACHS Council meetings and she was elected to serve on the Nominations Committee. For several years Jeff Chin chaired ACHS committees and other members of Council and I have served ACHS in various capacities.
In 2019, I recommended, and the members agreed to amend AKD’s Constitution, eliminating the position of stand-alone position of Representative to ACHS and have AKD’s Executive Director represent AKD at ACHS.
In 2024, AKD’s Executive Committee decided that it was time to move completely to the Executive Director model of leadership that Ken Davidson and I recommended. As my time with AKD ends, I am confident that the organization is in good hands and position to maintain the successes of the past two decades.
How would you like to see AKD grow and evolve in the future as an honors society?
AKD is on the path charted by the Council when we moved to hire our Executive Director. AKD is positioned to meet the issues faced by higher education in today’s America. One of many challenges remaining is how to convince university presidents, provosts, and deans that honor societies can be a critical partner with them in retaining and graduating students. By recognizing the best students and providing opportunities to engage them with sociology, both in research and service, AKD plays a vital role in academic enterprise. Too many university leaders do not acknowledge this and do not reward faculty who serve as chapter advisors. A challenge for AKD’s is to figure out how to make senior administrators aware of this critical role and reward the faculty who help students engage in it.
Thank you, Dr. McSeveney for 28 incredible years of service to AKD and for taking time to reflect on those years with us for this blog!