Please join the Department of Sociology in thanking Dr. Ken Berry and wishing him well as he enters a new stage of his long and productive career. Beginning May 15, Emeritus Professor Berry will pursue opportunities beyond CSU.

His next statistics book will be released July 28, and he and co-author Dr. Janis Johnston (’06) are writing a chapter in another former PhD student’s upcoming criminology book. Dr. Berry and Janis have an additional criminology and permutations project in the works, and he recently fielded a call from Cambridge Press.

“Dr. Berry has been an important part of CSU Sociology for decades and has helped make us the strong and resilient Department we are,” says Chair Pete Taylor. “For example, he originally wrote the Department Code that we continue to revise and update. He has served on nearly every Sociology faculty committee.” Dr. Berry has also served on campus committees during his 50 years of service at CSU, including Lory Student Center planning.

“Ken is a world-renowned expert on statistics, especially related to small sample analysis. He ‘speaks’ six programming languages and has published a truly amazing amount,” Pete continues. “He continues to go strong, for example, taking on new green criminology collaborative projects with colleagues, including a former CSU Sociology faculty member and two former Sociology PhD students.” Dr. Berry also has a hand in his own page layouts and sets up his formulas in LaTeX, Springer’s manuscript software. In addition to programming languages, he also speaks French and German.

“Ken has been one of Sociology’s most popular and beloved instructors over many, many years despite students’ common anxiety about statistics,” says Pete. “He jumped right in with everyone else last spring to move his statistics courses online and then to hybrid modality this fall and spring.”

You may find Dr. Berry in his office some afternoons between now and July 15. He has family visiting soon and hopes to resume his usual Santa Fe trek this fall. In the meantime, he might also be found mentoring graduate students over coffee or enjoying breakfast at the Rainbow where for years his statistics books have been featured on the yellow shelf for guests to enjoy while dining.

Dr. Berry, in lieu of being able to enjoy in-person coffee and cake with you, please accept our virtual handshakes. Our hallway will not be the same without you, but our Clark B tree is a nice reminder of you and your time on campus.

If Dr. Berry might allow us to capture some stories from his many years on campus, what questions do you have for him? Please share those with Carmen, as well as your own stories of working with Dr. Berry over the years. Thank you! If you are able to track down Dr. Berry, ask him about this tree’s interesting history…