On Thursday evening, members of the curriculum improvement project in sociology from the NC Community College System held a focus meeting. Following this meeting, a lively crew of sociologists and students assembled for the first-annual Get Together. They were expertly entertained by the NCCU Jazz Band.
On Friday, NCSA members began a full day of sessions with a keynote address by J. John Palen of Virginia Commonwealth University, Bringing Our Concepts Home: Sociology and the Ecological Context.
Palen told the audience that we have moved from the age of the city to the age of the suburb. The suburb has moved from the periphery to the economic center. To illustrate this change, Palen noted that central business districts now account for less than half of all sales (and the percentage continues to decline) and that more than half of all Americans are now suburbanites. Multinucleated centers now dominate the metropolitan landscape. Two thirds of all office space is located in the suburbs; twice as much manufacturing is now located in the suburbs as compared with the city.
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While older central business districts were public spaces open to all, the new outer cities with their large shopping malls are private property governed by executives appointed by corporate boards. Palen characterized this change as a return to the "city-state." Who can be in the mall is determined by company policy. While this may make malls saferplaces, it is not democratic, said Palen. "We have privatized the city without discussion," he added. If the skyscraper is the emblem of the 20th century, the ubiquitous shopping mall is the emblem of the 21st century.
Palen located the tip-point for this change over as the Vietnam War. Before Vietnam, Americans went downtown to shop; now they go to the shopping mall. The first mall appeared in 1956; the first food court, in the 1970s. Today malls have become even more flamboyant, and some have become tourist attractions in their own rights.
Minorities, too, have been caught up in the pattern of suburban growth, Palen noted. The 1990 census found one third of all African Americans living in suburbs. In the decade of the eighties, Hispanics accounted from one fourth of all suburban growth. Over half of all Asian Americans are living in suburbs.
Although suburbs have existed for 150 years, they began to predominate only after World War II. As multiracial and multiethnic conclaves, suburbs have achieved what cities failed to accomplish--stable, economically viable, multiracial communities.
Following the keynote address, NCSA members watched a demonstration of the Geographic Information System (GIS) from Taylor Technics. Isaac Robinson of NCCU described how several of his classes have used this technology to integrate the classroom and the real world. He cited examples involving poverty and transportation as well as violent crime and substandard housing.
Dick Taylor of Taylor Technics demonstrated GIS to show how taking tabular data into its system makes it into something which can be more easily visualized. One strength of GIS is linking tabular data with geographic data.
After these plenary morning sessions, NCSA members attended concurrent sessions. They included morning sessions on Environment and Society, New Solutions to Old Urban Problems, Size, Density and the Quality of Life, and Sociology in Service to the State.
Afternoon sessions included Technology and the Teaching of Sociology and Urban and Rural in Space and Time.
In between these exciting, concurrent session, NCSA members gathered for the annual awards luncheon. Christa Reiser of ECU presented the annual Himes Award for the best undergraduate paper to Jeffrey Kidder of UNC-Greensboro. Kidder's paper was entitled Reevaluating Control: The Relationship between School Policy and School Violence. Reiser also presented the first-ever graduate award to Sheryl L. Skaggs from NCSU for her paper on Gender Differences in Promotion: An Intrafirm Analysis.
Ken Land of Duke University presented the annual "Contributions to Sociology" award jointly to Richard and Ida Simpson. (Please see the article elsewhere in SOCIATION.)
At the annual business meeting, secretary-treasurer Pat Wyatt announced the results of the elections for Executive Council and President-Elect. Beth Davison of Appalachian State University, Stephen McNamee of UNC Wilmington, and Marlene Powell of UNC Pembroke were elected to serve three-year terms on the NCSA Executive Council. Ronald Wimberley of NC State University will serve as President-Elect.
The ballot initiative calling for a task force to work with state personnel offices to reclassify and open state-level social science jobs to sociology majors was also passed by the membership. An action committee consisting of Catherine Zimmer, Bob Moxley, and Ron Wimberley was appointed to carry out this initiative. NCSA members also discussed future Legislative Days, but declined to set up a statewide day. Instead, they encouraged individual professor and departments to make "local" visits coordinated by their own district representatives.
At the conclusion of the business meeting, outgoing president Suzanne Trask of Salem College turned the gavel over to George Conklin of NCCU. President-elect Ron Wimberley will serve as the program chair for the annual meeting in 2000.
Ida Harper Simpson took her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1956. Since 1958, Ida has been on the faculty of Duke University, including service as Professor of Sociology since 1981. She has authored, co-authored, or co-edited eight books and a number of articles in sociological journals. Ida has had extensive editorial experience, from being an Associate Editor of Social Forces to full editorship of Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews during 1987-91.
Ida has made many contributions to sociology at Duke, in the NCSA, the Southern Sociological Society (of which, she was President in 1987-88), and the American Sociological Association (of which, she was elected to Council for the years 1993-95).
Richard L. Simpson also took his advanced
degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1956. He
joined the faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1958, working his way up through
the ranks. Dick has been Kenan Professor of Sociology since 1980. He has
authored, co-authored, or co-edited nine books and has published dozens
of articles in the full range of sociological fora, from regional to national.
Dick has extensive editorial experience,
including now over 20 years as Editor of Social Forces, the flagship
journal of the Southern Sociological Society. He has served both the SSS
and ASA in multiple capacities, including a term as President
of the Southern Sociological Society in 1971-72.
Both Ida and Dick were members of the "founding generation" of the North Carolina Sociological Association and participated extensively in NCSA annual meetings through the 1970s and 1980s. Ida was especially active in organizing sessions for participating undergraduate students and on the topic of sociology majors clubs at undergraduate institutions.
In sum, the Simpsons, both as individuals and as a couple, have made sustained and lasting contributions on behalf of Sociology in the state of North Carolina. Beyond all of the professional accomplishments, they also are kind, warm people, always willing to help others, whether student or colleague, in the advancement of sociology. In these days of high marital and geographic mobility among academics, the probability that we shall see the likes of them again in North Carolina is distressingly low.
Richard and Ida Harper Simpson were honored by the NCSA with its first ever joint award for Contributions to Sociology in North Carolina.
The theme of the North Carolina Sociological Association's 1999 Annual Meeting was Bringing Our Concepts Home: Sociology and the Ecological Context. The first morning session was organized by Robert Wortham of NCCU on Environment and Society. He provided an overview of environmental sociology, NCCU's environmental science program, and arranged presentations by two panelists.
Jay Messer of the Environmental Protection Agency informed us that economic interests are increasingly motivating private industries to innovate environmentally. These initiatives include developing means for dealing with regulations and recycling valued resources. He informs us the EPA is moving more into informing interested parties regarding environmental issues as compared to regulation and enforcement. We learned that the EPA may be a source of funding and will be more often hiring sociologists in future. Messer indicates relevant environmental options often will entail life-style choices.
Eric Woodrum of NCSU presented on Environmental Sociology: Potentials, Obstacles and Models and was invited to prepare the condensed version for inclusion in SOCIATION which follows.
This year's program theme is well suited for considering Environmental Sociology. The ecology movement of the 1970s was a social context from which enhanced environmental awareness and programs to promote environmental concerns derived. By developing environmental sociology we are indeed bring our concepts and their environmental potential home to benefit the natural world on which our survival depends.
There are important opportunities today in environmental sociology for our profession and society which it is good for us to recognize although there are, apparent and real obstacles to confront. Alternative models for realizing those benefits are available for members of NCSA to consider.
The potential for an ecologically oriented sociology in our state and beyond is afforded by public invitations from the, White House, Governor, University pronouncements and other official bodies today. This is an opportune time which we should ignore. Public support for environmental programs is suggested by high priorities cited to environmental issues for political candidates and application of projected budgetary surplus. Since we have a prosperous economy it makes positive environmental initiates more feasible than otherwise the case.
Obstacles to environmental sociology include turf battles and the perception that environmental priorities must be in competition with other interests. Turf based resistance to environmental programs often are the result of traditional academic and political constructions which unnecessarily define environmental priorities as separate from establish or emerging alternatives. Instead, environmental initiates may be pursued as justifying new resources or intrinsically multi-disciplinary.
Viewed in that way environmental sociology and related programs are naturally conducive to establishing linkages to other programs and perspectives rather than being in completion with them. In the same spirit instead of environmental programs and priorities being considered as opposed to other interests, common cause may be made by identifying how environmental issues apply to particular constituencies. Conspicuous examples include consideration of environmental justice issues as a concern for policy studies, inequality, ethics, minority relations, and community development.
I have been pleased that my new course
in environmental sociology has actually sparked student interest in what
often are rejected as overly abstract topics. For instance discussion of
methodological issues were actually initiated and applied to ecological
levels of pollutant effects. On other occasions theory questions were pursued
regarding the prevalence of human exceptionalism assumptions in varieties
of social theory, micro macro linkages applied to environmental problems
and solutions, and agency in environmental action. Environmental sociology
provides an opportunity for sociologists to join with natural sciences,
technologies, social service fields and others in common cause when seeking
funding or public attentions. These may be useful arenas for interdisciplinary
or interagency cooperation.
Models for environmental sociology are made of an array of effective paradigms, not a sole correct formula. Curricula may be organized around natural systems upon which all life is based including social systems. Then ecological patterns of resource dependence, technology, biodiversity importance and waste disposal are appropriate topics.
Another model could build from consideration of competition and resource scarcity in natural orders and related cycles of succession to the social hierarchies which correspond sociologically. Additional general models for environmental sociology could follow presentation of basic environmental concepts and paradigms with historically sequenced case studies or comparative applications to disparate national or ethnic settings.
A theme of such a course or program might be how the environmental perspective enables us to surpass the human exceptionalism paradigm to appreciate human society in its natural context. All of these are ways to bring our concepts home and put them in ecological context. Such a development would carry this year's NCSA program theme to a rich potential.
Tim McGettigan discussed preliminary results from a study at the Crisis Control Ministry, a poverty relief organization in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The intention of this study is to explore the nature and influences of contemporary urban poverty by serving as a volunteer interviewer at the Crisis Control Ministry. In addition, the study is timed in such a way as to explore changes in urban poverty in the wake of the sweeping 1996 Welfare reforms. "As I have been engaged in the 'applied' process of interviewing and delivering assistance to the Crisis Control Ministry's 'clients' (i.e., individuals who request poverty relief assistance), I have also been able to gain an appreciation for the varied circumstances under which individuals encounter contemporary poverty crises."
Impoverished people must be able to access and exercise a significant amount of "power" (Gaventa 1982; Imig 1996) to overcome the stumbling blocks to effective participation in the social and economic environment. This project is intended to assess the potential that exists for those who are severely economically disadvantaged to improve their standards of living. Accurately defining urban poverty requires that one evaluates very carefully, and on a human level (Liebow 1995), the manner in which social, economic, and political power structures "balance" with individuals' capacity to access opportunities and, thereby, exert some control over their life chances. This research explores the "power" that is present in the lives of the urban poor as both an inhibitor of opportunities (Gaventa 1982; Gans 1995) as well as a vehicle through which cycles of poverty may be interrupted.
Pappi Conrad, a senior Sociology major at Salem College who just completed an independent study, presented a brief history of public housing in the United States, beginning with FDR's New Deal projects which had the dual intention of providing low rent housing for working class families during the depression and creating construction jobs. During the 1950s, highrise public housing projects came to dominate, along with a change in the population living in the housing.
Urban renewal, which was seen as a way to replace decaying urban neighborhoods, was called "Negro removal" by its critics. By the 1970s the social shortcomings of dense highrise design were apparent as such buildings became dangerous and unlivable for residents. In 1974, the Section 8 Program provided more flexibility for families to find housing in the wider community and to receive assistance from the local housing authority in paying rents.
In the early 1990s a new program called Family Self Sufficiency was developed to assist families who must qualify by being employed and by entering into a contract with the housing authority to limit their stay in public housing to five years. In exchange for this agreement, a package of educational, social and employment services and the establishment of an escrow account for a portion of their rent is provided for the family. At the end of the program, the intent is for the family to be economically self-sufficient, with an escrow to invest in a home or some other goal they choose. HUD provides what are called "Hope VI" grants to selected public housing communities to renovate some of the existing housing, add facilities for childcare and other services, and to subsidize construction of mixed income housing to attract tenants and homeowners with middle incomes.
Charlotte, NC was one of the first cities to receive such a grant and its downtown "First Ward" revitalization is well underway. Winston-Salem's Kimberly Park housing community recently received a HopeVI grant and will soon begin the process. The change in orientation from warehousing low income families in isolated "projects" to the development of mixed-income communities is a social experiment which will be interesting to watch.
Carol Schmid has been involved in a
HUD "Community Outreach Partnership Center" grant. She helped write the
grant at the Center for the Study of Social Issues at UNC-G Spring semester
1998.
The purpose of the COPC grants is to form a partnership
between universities, colleges and community colleges to use their expertise
together with community organizations to help revitalize poor neighborhoods.
The grant establishes a COPC in the West Macedonia neighborhood of High
Point. This 0.5 square mile area, adjacent to High Point's downtown area
has suffered economic decline and inner city blight over the last 20 years
due to the movement of industry to greenfields south of town. The Macedonia
area has high levels of poverty, unemployment, and crime.
The student volunteers, who were enrolled in a Social Problems class, did volunteer work in the community for 10 hours. They are pursuing a variety of projects. One student (working on community policing) was able to ride for an eight hour shift in a police cruiser. Other students are working with limited English Proficient students. Still others are helping out at neighborhood meetings. One student became so involved that he started asking residents about their needs while walking around the community.
"I have found that by working in the community," said Schmid, "the social problems class has 'come alive.' Because of our involvement in the community, the city of High Point provided a van for the entire class to tour the Macedonia community, including new housing sites and crack houses. Although time consuming, the class has been very rewarding."
We continue below a review of social patterns in North Carolina of interest to sociologists. Member Ken Wilson helped establish the Survey Research Laboratory at ECU. Below is summary of the kind of work they do on social and employment patterns.For future suggestions for this column, please e mail George Conklin at <george@nccu.edu>.
The State of North Carolina is establishing a Global TransPark. This is an airport devoted to manufacturing. It would be located in Kinston, in the midst of a region with limited employment opportunities.
A survey was conducted from January 9-22, 1998 in order to see that if and when the Global TransPark were a success, would there be enough workers in the region interested in working at the airport? Work would be mostly at night, when large air transports from distant locations would land at the park, and employees would assemble parts from different locations. The same planes would then fly the assembled goods directly to cities in the USA where the products could be sold. Total time on the ground would be short, perhaps 8 hours.
For the park to succeed, a stable and highly motivated workforce would be required. Following in the distant foosteps of Weber, can we assume that a rural workforce in Eastern NC would have interest in working nights at an airport? Is location a problem due to a lack of workforce which might be found in a large city? Or, on the contrary, would a rural workforce with few job opportunities jump at the chance for factory type jobs?
The survey found that over one-third of the respondenets living i six neighboring counties were intersted in the proposed new jobs. A quarter of those now employued full-time expresed an interest even from more distant counties. Projecting to the population as a whole, 113,717 persons would be interested in working at the Global TransPark. In addition, 11,548 unemployed and 25,768 students would be interested.
Level of education showed a strong association with interest with work at the Global TransPark (see Table 1). The highest rates of interest were among high school graduates.
The report concludes that were a company to locate at the Global TransPark, they would have a very large number of applicants who were qualified for factory-type work, and thus the company could be very selective. Further, it is essentially a non-union workforce. Over half (58.9%) of the respondents with family income under $25,000 would be interested in employment, even considering that night work would intrude upon family life.
It is clear that for residents of North
Carolina in the eastern part of the state that employment opportunites
are highly valued. Even the employed would consider the newly created jobs
in great numbers. What the residents of North Carolina lack is not the
desire for factory jobs, but the opportunity to be employed. Any new employement
in the eastern part of the state would be highly welcome
according to the report.
Chi Square Likelihood Ratio = 92.04, DF=7,
Sig .00000, Missing observations = 5.
Source: "Global Transpark Labor Survey Analysis," by Al Delia, Kenneth Wilson, Richard Brockett, Claudia Williams, Melanie Meekins and Wandy Nieves. Greenville: Regional Development Services, East Carolina University, 1998.
Reviewed by George H. Conklin
Note: The sessions on Urban Density and the Quality of Life will be reported in the next edition of Sociation.