Henry Allen

Henry Lee Allen is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Wheaton College. Dr. Allen was appointed to this academic position in August 1998. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree (with honor) in Biblical Studies from Wheaton College in 1977. Professor Allen subsequently acquired master's and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago. He has just returned from Athens, Greece where he made a presentation about scientific literacy to an international cadre of scholars.

In July 2016, Hank presented his current research at the International Sociological Association’s Global Forum held in Vienna, Austria, July 10-14. His topic was: Social Justice, Police Shootings, and Abusive Social Encounters with African Americans—exploring Supreme Court rulings, police policies on the use of deadly force, United Nations’ reports on the status of African Americans, reports on human rights by the Chinese, and a plethora of research in criminology and sociology. Just recently, the European Public Law Organization has requested this presentation as a chapter in a forthcoming book about global issues.

Before coming to Wheaton College, Dr. Allen held faculty positions at Bethel College (MN), Calvin College (MI), the Margaret S. Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development at the University of Rochester (NY), and the Behavioral Sciences Division at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Allen has received several honors, including a Danforth Graduate Fellowship, Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, Who's Who in Education, Who’s Who in the East, International Men of Achievement, and Outstanding Young Man of America. Dr. Allen is married to Juliet Cooper, formerly of Liberia, West Africa. They have eight adult children and four grandchildren. Among other assignments, he has taught the Adult Sunday School class at Jubilee Baptist Church in Bolingbrook for twelve consecutive years, under the auspices of Pastor John L. Byrd. Hank has also served as a founder and former president of the African American Leadership Roundtable in the western suburbs of Chicago.

• North American Association of Christian Social Workers (NACSW)
• New York Academy of Sciences
• The Planetary Society
• Woodrow Wilson Center of Scholars
• The North American Association for Computational, Social and Organization Science

University of Chicago
Ph.D., Sociology, 1988

Wheaton College
B.A., 1977

• Higher Education
• Sociology
• Ethnicity

Police Criminality and Violence in the United States: A Missing Link in Global Sociology and Criminology
2018 World Congress of Sociology, International Sociological Association, Toronto, CA

Panelist/Presenter
Conference for graduate students and postdocs, University of Chicago, April 2017

Outside reviewer for the 2016-2017 Research Opportunities Program Proposal Evaluation
Ministry of Labor, Ontario, Canada, March 2017

Scientific Literacy and the Future of Ethnic Minority Groups in the United States: the Unfinished Civil Rights Movement
4th Annual International Conference on Demography and Population Studies, Athens Institute for Education and Research, Athens, Greece

Presenter/panelist, "Race and Diversity on Campuses" session
2017 NEA Higher Education Conference, Dallas, TX, March 2017

"Diversity as Heroes"
A presentation at Farmers Insurance Headquarters, Grand Rapids, MI, 2017

Social Justice, Police Shootings, and Abusive Social Encounters with Unarmed African Americans
International Sociological Association's Global Forum, Vienna, Austria

Faculty Workload and Productivity in Scandinavia
The National Education Association Annual Conference on Higher Education, San Diego, CA

Panelist/Discussant: "The Introductory Course: Gateway to Discipline"
Preparing Future Faculty Conference, University of Chicago

Panelist/Discussant, "Preparing Future Faculty"
Conference, Northern Illinois University

Individual

Dr. Allen is currently involved in various research projects focusing on issues of academic organizations and systems, mathematical and computational sociology, and the sociology of science. Dr. Allen is currently working on several research projects for the American Bible Society and the National Education Association.

He is involved in several ongoing research projects, including a multivariate sociological study of organizational changes affecting 241 institutions of higher education in the Harvard Faculty Appointment and Policy Archive. Dr. Allen is also in the process of writing a book about the use of mathematical and computational models in analyzing academic systems as well as a reprisal of his doctoral dissertation study that focuses on organizational changes in historically black colleges.

With Students

He is supervising student research on the history of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at Wheaton College. He has served on the departmental committee charged with producing the departmental newsletter, planning special events, and organizing alumni functions.

Veblen Revisited: Faculty Workload and Productivity in an Era of Privatization and Assessment, The NEA 2006 Almanac of Higher Education
Allen, Henry L., 2006

The Organizational Demography of Faculty Tenure: 1980-2000, The NEA 2002 Almanac of Higher Education
Allen, Henry L., 2002

The Quest for Biblical Community: Mixing Oral and Written Cultures, The Church of the New Millennium - True Unity (Harmony) in the Church
Allen, Henry L., 2002

Tenure: Why Faculty, and the Nation, Need It, Thought and Action, Fall 2000: The NEA Higher Education Journal
Allen, Henry L., 2000

Evangelizing Professionals: Workers in the Field, Evangelism and Discipleship in African-American Churches
Allen, Henry L., 1999