New chairmen have been appointed for the departments of linguistics and sociology at Brigham Young University.
John S. Robertson is the new chairman of the department of linguistics, replacing Melvin J. Luthy, who will resume full-time teaching following a sabbatical leave. Stephen J. Bahr will direct the department of sociology, taking over from J. Lynn England, who will return to full-time teaching and research.Both appointments will be effective Aug. 1.
A native of Wyoming, Robertson received bachelor's and master's degrees in political science and linguistics from BYU before obtaining a doctorate in linguistics from Harvard University in 1976.
He was a Peace Corps research assistant in the Mayan dialects Cakchiquel and Mam from 1967-69, and was a member of the linguistics faculty at Cornell University before joining the BYU faculty in 1975.
Bahr is a widely published social scientist and former director of BYU's Family and Demographic Research Institute. He received both bachelor's and master's degrees in sociology and family relations from BYU in 1968 and 1969 respectively, and a doctorate in sociology from Washington State University in 1972.
He was a member of the sociology faculty at the University of Texas at Austin from 1971 to 1973 and joined the BYU faculty in 1975, interrupting his tenure there to serve as a Professional Fellow at the Bush Institute for Child and Family Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1979 to 1980.
He is editor of the journal "Family Perspective," and is a member of the Criminal Justice Research Consortium for the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.