Jackson Toby

Jackson Toby, Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Rutgers University, was Director of the Institute for Criminological Research at Rutgers from 1968 to 1994. He did his graduate work at Harvard. He wrote his Ph. D. dissertation under the guidance of sociological luminary, Professor Talcott Parsons, on the relationship between educational maladjustment and juvenile delinquency. In the field of criminology his concept of "stake in conformity" helped shift the research emphasis from trying to find out why offenders commit criminal acts to finding out why most people control ever-present impulses to break social rules.

Beginning in 1980, he began conducting research and writing in academic journals and in big-circulation newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times about school violence. He took the controversial position that one cause of school violence is that not enough public school students who hate school drop out. Putting in a good word for dropping out of school resulted in his being interviewed by Jane Pauley on the Today Show and being interviewed on television by Charlie Rose. His article, "Let Them Drop Out: A Response to Killings in Suburban High Schools" appeared in The Weekly Standard on April 9, 2001.

His serious interest in deviant behavior led him to write about a seemingly frivolous subject, streaking, published in a 2005 issue of the Journal of Classical Sociology. Despite the subject matter and a photograph of a 1974 streaker in the published article, the article is not lurid. Toby himself neither observed nor participated in the behavior analyzed in his article. The closest he comes to streaking is playing squash three times a week, appropriately clothed. Professor Toby has been listed in WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA for more than forty years.

An ardent believer in the value of Clubhouses to help persons with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder recover sufficiently to continue their educations and obtain employment, he is the author of newspaper articles that say this and is currently Vice President of the Laurel House Middlesex Board of Directors. In the past he has served on the Boards of NAMI-NJ and Triple C Housing Inc.

After a half-century of teaching sociology and criminology, he retired from Rutgers University in 2003 and and completed the book he had been working on sporadically for many years, "The Lowering of Higher Education: Why Financial Aid Should Be Based on Student Performance." It was published in 2009. Reviewed in the Wall Street Journal and other publications, it was generally praised enthusiastically.

Professor Richard Vedder, "Jackson Toby Scores a Home Run," Center for College Affordability and Productivity," December 10, 2009. http://collegeaffordability.blogspot.com/2009/12/jackson-toby-scores-home-run.html

Professor Robert Weisberg, Review published in Academic Questions, (2010) 23:376-380

DOI 10.1007/s12129-010-9177-8

Review by Professor James Cote, Canadian Journal of Sociology: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/CJS/article/view/7991/7013

Review by Professor George Leef, "'Higher Education' Has Been Lowered," John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, January 19, 2010: http://www.popecenter.org/clarion_call/article.html?id=2293

Professor Toby has written articles that elaborate or summarize aspects of THE LOWERING OF AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION:

On Pigeons, Pells and Student Incentives, Mindingthecampus.com, 4-8-10: C:Documents and SettingsHP_AdministratorMy DocumentsThe Lowering of Higher Education in AmericaMy articles based on the book -8-10 , On Pigeons, Pells and Student Incentives.mht

How Scholarships Morphed into Financial Aid, Academic Questions, Fall 2010:

http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=1515.

Why Remediation in College Doesn't Work, August 19, 2010, Mindingthecampus.com

Incentives Work for Pigeons. Can They Motivate American College Students? The American Magazine, 9-1-10: http://www.american.com/archive/2010/august/incentives-work-for-pigeons-can-they-motivate-american-college-students