Professor Andy Furlong - a tribute

This tribute has been kindly provided by Professor Michele Burman, Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences with Professors Denis and Moira Fischbacher-Smith, Fred Cartmel and colleagues from the University of Leicester. Professor Andy Furlong, who died on Monday 30 January 2017 at the age of 60, was an internationally renowned sociologist of youth . ‌From early in his career, Andy was at the forefront of youth studies in the UK and internationally; he was a highly-regarded leader for the discipline and someone whose drive and commitment to understanding the challenges of youth captured the imaginations and secured the loyalty of many academic colleagues and students over the course of his career. Andy held academic posts at the Universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde before joining the Sociology Department at the University of Glasgow, where he established the Youth, Education and Employment Research Unit and also became Head of the Department, creating a collegiate and productive environment in which Sociology thrived. Following an internal move to the Department of Management, where he was Professor of Sociology, Andy was subsequently appointed as Professor of Social Inclusion and Education in the Department of Education at Glasgow in recognition of his broader work on social class and social inclusion. In 2014 he was appointed Dean of Research in the College of Social Sciences, a position for which he was uniquely qualified, and his down-to-earth and collegiate style of leadership, kindness and unfailing, and often irreverent, good humour set an example for colleagues across the College and wider University.