Renowned Sociologist Discusses Impact of Welfare Reform in Lawrence Convocation

APPLETON, WIS. -- Harvard University sociologist William Julius Wilson, one of America's most influential thinkers on issues of race, class and poverty, delivers the address, "Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform in the New Economy," Tuesday, May 22 in Lawrence University's annual Honors Convocation.

In addition to his address at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, Wilson also will conduct a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m. in Riverview Lounge of the Lawrence Memorial Union. Both events are free and open to the public.

Named one of America's "25 most influential people" by Time magazine in 1996, Wilson has spent his career examining the impact of inequality and poverty on racial relations, family structure and joblessness and how public policies address these issues.

Wilson has written or edited nine prize-winning books on issues of race and poverty, including "The Declining Significance of Race," "The Truly Disadvantaged," which The New York Times Book Review named one of the best books of 1987, and "When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor," which was named one of 1996's most notable books.

In his latest book, "The Bridge over the Racial Divide: Rising Inquality and Coalition Politics" (University of California Press, 1999), Wilson argues against middle- and working-class groups remaining fragmented along racial lines, advocating instead a cross-race, class-based alliance of working- and middle-class Americans that pursues policies that will benefit them rather than the rich, including full employment, programs to assist families and workers in their private lives and a reconstructed "affirmative opportunity" program that benefits African Americans without antagonizing whites.

Wilson is the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University -- one of only 17 Harvard faculty members to hold the prestigious title of "University Professor." Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard in 1996, Wilson taught sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and spent 24 years on the faculty at the University of Chicago, where he directed the Center for the Study of Urban Inequality from 1990-1996.

A former president of the American Sociological Association and a recipient of 32 honorary degrees, Wilson was awarded the National Medal of Science -- the highest scientific honor in the United States -- in 1998. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education and the American Philsophical Society.

In 1987, Wilson was named a prestigious MacArthur Fellow. The $500,000 unrestricted fellowship is awarded to individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and exceptional promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment.