Profile
I conducted my undergraduate education at the University of California, Santa Cruz; this education included studies in sociology at the University of Sussex, Brighton, England.
I began my professional education in department of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. I was appointed to the National Institute of Mental Health program in Personality and Social Structure directed by Dr. John Clausen.
I also worked for Professor Harold Wilensky on his National Science Foundation funded research project on the Welfare State and Equality. I conducted my own research for my doctoral dissertation on mental health policy in the US, England, and Sweden.
In 1977 I was appointed an Assistant Professor in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. I attained the rank of Associate Professor in 1985.
The undergraduate courses I have taught have included social theory, political sociology, sociology of religion, social psychology sociology of mental health and illness, medical sociology, and social gerontology. The graduate Political Economy courses covered topics in domestic social policies, comparative social policies, health-care policies.
I have continued to conduct research in social policy since joining the faculty at UTD. My publications have been in, US aging policy, comparative-welfare policy, and mental health services. I acquired practical understanding of social policy by working for the North Texas health & planning agency and by serving on the Texas Indigent Health Care Task Force. I also served as a consultant to the Texas Cancer Council.
My present research interest is in youth suicide and homicide. Texas has attained the dubious reputation as being a leader in youth violence, suicide and homicide, and I have conducted research and published on this topic. I have a grant from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health to study these disturbing acts, I plan to file my final report to the Hogg .
In addition to these policy studies, I have since 1989 been examining the progress of women in religious orders for ordination and the more recent disruptive campaign for the ordination of gays and lesbians.
Paradoxically, Texas is in the forefront of these two religious developments. Members of several denominations have objected to the call for inclusion of women in holy orders and gays and lesbians ordinations as wells as the blessing of samesex unions.
I have conducted interviews with persons in these movements, attended conferences on these issues, and written newspaper articles on these topics. I have plans to publish more extensively on these topics from my writings.
- Updated: July 26, 2006
