History

On  September 22, 1963 the Syndicate of the University of Rajshahi decided “that the Department of Sociology be opened for M.A. (Previous) teaching from the session 1964-65 and teaching it as Honours and Subsidiary subject from the session 1965-66.” In 1964, Professor Badruddin Umar, the then Head of the Department of Political Science, was given the administrative responsibility of setting up the proposed department. On October 4, 1964 the Syndicate again decided that the Department of Sociology will “be established under the Department of Political Science and Sociology from the session 1964-65 teaching the subject at M.A. Previous level and B.A. (Pass and Subsidiary) level …” Professor Quazi Hasibul Hossain was appointed as the first teacher in this department to teach sociology (1-9-1964). Khaled Hassan, Bazlul Mobin Chowdhury,  Ahbab Ahmed and M Abdul Quadir Bhuiyan subsequently joined the department. In 1966, nine students of the first batch received their MA degree in Sociology.

On October 7, 1969 the Department of Sociology was separated from the Department of Political Science after the joining of Fazlur Rashid Khan, a former teacher of the Department of Sociology University at the University of Dhaka, as a Reader and Head of the new department. However, College of Social Work was attached with the Department of Sociology and was named Department of Sociology and Social Work (from 07-10-1969 to 12-11-1972). On November 13, 1972 Department of Sociology and Department of Social Work were established as independent departments. Dr. Fazlur Rashid Khan continued to be the Head of the Department of Sociology.

A three-year BA Honours program and a one-year Master’s program carrying 900 marks and  500 marks respectively commenced from the academic session 1970-1971 and the traditional two-year (one-year previous and one-year final) Master’s Program continued as before. From the academic session 1970-71 to 1996-97, sociology was taught as a subsidiary subject carrying 300 marks to Bachelor’s (Honours) students of allied disciplines, e.g., Bangla, English, Social Work, Political Science, Economics, History, etc. The traditional two-year Master’s Program was ceased to exist from the 1997-98 academic session. The department offered a four-year BSS Honours Program carrying 2500 marks during the academic sessions between 1997-98 and 2005-2006. Since the academic session 2006-07, the department has been offering a four-year BSS Honours Programme carrying 3000 marks and 120 credits and a one-year Master’s Programme carrying 600 marks and 36 credits following the introduction of grading system to assess students’ academic performances.