Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A leading authority on U.S. environmental regulations aimed at protecting spotted owls from extinction will lead a public program Friday [April 1] on the Mississippi State campus.
William Freudenburg, president of the Rural Sociological Society, will focus on national debates surrounding the endangered species. The program begins at 2 p.m. in the ground-floor auditorium of the university's Mitchell Memorial Library. He holds the Dehlsen Endowed Chair in Environmental Policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
His presentation, "The Chainsaw, the Nest and the Significance Test: Fifty Years of Spotted Owls," is sponsored by the Alpha Kappa Delta sociology honor society. A reception for Freudenburg will follow in the third-floor John Grisham Room. He will speak at a private banquet that evening in the Leo Seal M-Club Building.
"Dr. Freudenburg is the most widely cited environmental sociologist in the United States," said MSU sociology professor Frank M. Howell. "He should be of interest to the public and those interested in the environment and wildlife-related issues."
Freudenburg has devoted most of his career to the study of environment-society relationships, according to AKD chapter president Wes James of Starkville and sociology professor Greg Dunaway. James is a sociology graduate student; Dunaway, the chapter adviser.
James and Dunaway said Freudenburg is particularly well known for his work on resource-dependent communities, the social impacts of environmental and technological change, and risk analysis. Recent and forthcoming publications by the Yale University doctoral graduate have focused on topics ranging from the social impacts of U.S. oil dependence to the polarized nature of debates over spotted owls.
Howell said Freudenburg's MSU presentation will challenge arguments that environmental regulations designed to protect spotted owls pose needless threats to people's jobs--particularly Pacific Northwest loggers.
"Dr. Freudenburg has had the temerity to look at the actual numbers," said Howell. "In this lecture, he will discuss both the specific findings and the broader implications."
Freudenburg has held official positions with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Sociological Association and National Academy of Sciences, among others. He also has received awards from several of those organizations.
He is included in numerous reference works, including Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.
For more information on the program, contact Dunaway at (662) 325-7879 or dunaway@soc.msstate.edu.