Celebrating Dr. Akbar Mahdi: Congratulations on your retirement!
Dr. Mahdi’s impressive teaching career spans over fifty years. He began teaching high school students during his college years (1971-1976) at the National University of Iran and then worked as a teaching assistant while in graduate school. After earning his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1983 from Michigan State University, Dr. Mahdi went on to tenured faculty positions at Adrian College, Central State University, and Ohio Wesleyan University where he worked for a cumulative total of twenty seven years. After retiring in 2010 and relocating to California, Dr. Mahdi decided he was not yet done with teaching and joined the faculty at CSUN as a lecturer in 2012.
During his career, Dr. Mahdi has published numerous journal articles and book chapters and is the author of several books, including Culture and Customs of Iran (co-authored), Teen Life in the Middle East, Iranian Culture, Civil Society, and Concern for Democracy, and Sociology in Iran (co-authored). Since joining the CSUN faculty, he has remained an active scholar serving on the editorial board of the Iranian Studies Journal, as chair of the Association for Iranian Studies – Mehrdad Mashayekhi Dissertation Award Committee, and as an elected member of the American Sociological Association’s Retirement Network.
Dr. Mahdi enjoys teaching qualitative and theoretical courses related to social change in the areas of class, gender, ethnicity, and development with a Middle Eastern regional focus. In 2019 he added to the department’s curricular offerings by developing the SOC 332 People, Society, and Culture in the Middle East course. In his four decades of teaching at the collegiate level, Dr. Mahdi has received recognition from the institutions where he has worked and from their student bodies. The two student-initiated awards he received at CSUN last year were especially meaningful, reaffirming Dr. Mahdi’s deep love for teaching and the impact it has had on his students’ lives.
When asked what he will miss the most about teaching at CSUN, Dr. Mahdi responded, “I will miss the classroom and my students most, followed by my colleagues, and the university itself as a vibrant hub of teaching and learning.” Dr. Mahdi recalls that his most rewarding moments at CSUN were those when students shared that something they learned in class helped them view sociological issues in their own lives more critically. He noted, “that sense of relevance for students is especially meaningful at CSUN where many students balance work and study.” As he begins his retirement, it is those conversations that remind Dr. Mahdi why he loves teaching and affirms the deep meaning of his career.
As a self-described activist scholar, retiring from CSUN does not mark the end of Dr. Mahdi’s academic life. He plans to complete several unfinished writing projects, stay active in conferences and media discussions on Middle Eastern and Iranian politics, and maybe even return periodically to teach a course. Having traveled widely as an advisor on student trips, as a conference participant, and for personal visits, Dr. Mahdi hopes that he and his wife can continue to travel more frequently during retirement as much as health and finances allow.
The Department of Sociology would like to congratulate Dr. Mahdi on his retirement and long career, of which CSUN was lucky to be a part.