The Meeting Is Over

Information provided here is for reference.

A SOLICITATION FOR HELP FROM RSS MEMBERS FOR THE SILENT AUCTION

Last year's RSS Silent Auction was a great success, raising over $1,000 for Minority Scholar Travel Grants, the Early Careers Research Award and the Thesis/Dissertation Research Grant Award programs. The Endowment Committee hopes this year's Silent Auction will generate even more money for the great causes it supports.

To make this happen, we need your help! Specifically, we need you and your programs to donate items for the Silent Auction. In past years the most popular items have been those that were handmade or that symbolized the creativity and skill of rural people. Baskets containing specialized foods, wines, or other products from your state or region are also popular. A surprising number of local businesses such as jewelry stores are willing to donate items, and we encourage you to solicit such donations wherever possible.

If you wish to contribute an item to the Silent Auction, or if you are successful in soliciting donations from others on our behalf, please send a note to the chair of the Endowment Committee, Rick Krannich (richard.krannich@usu.edu) as soon as possible. Hopefully you can bring the donated item with you to the RSS meetings in Sacramento; otherwise you can ship it to Rick in advance of the meetings. Once again this year we will also conduct a raffle for two nights lodging at the 2005 Annual Meeting host hotel; the Hyatt Regency in Tampa, Florida. Meeting dates are August 10-13, 2005.

What is a Silent Auction? An opportunity to "silently" bid on items donated by individuals and universities during receptions, session breaks, and other "free" time during the meetings. You simply write your name and the amount you wish to bid on the bid sheet located with an item. Another person may come along and write their name below yours with a higher bid. Whoever has placed the highest bid when the auction is closed (Sunday, August 15 at 12:00 noon) wins the item.

Symposium and Banquet to Honor Fred Buttel

"Sustainability and Social Justice:
Reflections on Agriculture, Technology and the
Environment in an Age of Globalization"

August 11, 2004
Sheraton Grand Hotel - Sacramento, California

The achievements and contributions of Fred Buttel are well known to the Rural Sociology community. The University of Wisconsin Department of Rural Sociology is organizing a symposium to honor Fred and his accomplishments as scholar, teacher, mentor, colleague, and leader.

As most of the RSS membership is aware, Fred has faced a number of health challenges. This symposium is being scheduled with these circumstances in mind. The symposium will be held at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel on August 11, 2004, the day before the beginning of the 67th annual meeting of the RSS. The day-long symposium will include three seminars featuring internationally prominent presenters, a panel discussion, and an evening banquet.

The seminars will treat the areas in which Fred has made important contributions: the sociology of agriculture and agro-food systems, the sociology of agricultural science and technology, and environmental sociology. Two hallmarks of Fred's work have been its critical orientation and its commitment to socially progressive outcomes. With reference to their own areas of scholarship and interest, seminar presenters will reflect on issues of justice and sustainability in the context of globalization.

Phil McMichael will chair the seminars and Larry Busch will serve as the master of ceremonies at the evening banquet. Seminar presenters include Larry Busch, Martin Kenney, Bill Friedland, Jane Collins, Harriet Friedmann, Bill Heffernan, Riley Dunlap, Arthur Mol, and Allan Schnaiberg. In addition, a pre-dinner panel comprised of early-career rural and environmental sociologists - Rachel Schurman, Kevin Wehr and Doug Jackson-Smith - will address the future of the discipline.

The UW Department of Rural Sociology is now seeking donations - large and small - to underwrite what promises to be an enjoyable and intellectually engaging event. We expect to charge those attending the symposium and banquet a nominal registration fee, but we would like to collect the funds needed to underwrite the symposium and banquet as soon as possible.

Please help us honor Fred by making a contribution now. Checks should be made payable to "Rural Sociological Society ­ Buttel Symposium" and should be sent to Kenneth Pigg, Treasurer, Rural Sociological Society, 104 Gentry Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211-7040. Contributions are tax deductible, and will be acknowledged on the symposium program.

Mark your calendars now. Registration materials for the symposium and banquet will be included in the 2004 Annual Meeting registration packet that RSS members will receive in April.

Contact:
Jack Kloppenburg (jrkloppe@wisc.edu) or Daniel Kleinman (dlkleinman@facstaff.wisc.edu) with questions or for further information.

Schedule of Symposium

• 9:30 - 10:00 a.m.

• Welcome

• Lionel "Bo" Beaulieu, President, Rural Sociological Society
  Mississippi State University

• Gary Green, Chair, Department of Rural Sociology,
  University of Wisconsin

• Philip McMichael, Symposium Chair,
  Cornell University

• 10:00 - 11:30 a.m.

• Agriculture

• Jane Collins, University of Wisconsin
  "Commodity Chains and the Global Village:
  Changing Relationships in Global Agriculture"

• Harriet Friedmann, University of Toronto, Canada
  "Food Fights: Challenges to Global Regulation of Food Safety"

• William Heffernan, University of Missouri
  "The Evolving Agrofood System:
  Implications for Social Justice and Sustainability"

• 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.

• Lunch

• 12:45 - 2:15 p.m.

• Technology

• Lawrence Busch, Michigan State University
  "Are Sustainability and Social Justice Compatible?"

• Martin Kenney, University of California, Davis
  "Outsourcing Service Jobs to India:
  The Implications for New Economy Employment
  in Non-Urban America"

• William Friedland, University of California-Santa Cruz
  "State and Science in California Wine"

• 2:15 - 2:30 p.m.

• Break

• 2:30 - 4:00 p.m.

• Environment

• Riley Dunlap, Abo Akademi University, Finland
  "The Globalization of Citizen Concern for the Environment:
  From Postmaterialism to Sustainability and Social Justice"

• Arthur Mol, Wageningen University, Netherlands
  "Social Theory on the Environment:
  A European Perspective on US Conceptual Developments"

• Allan Schnaiberg, Northwestern University
  "Is Sustainability Possible if Social Justice is a Prerequisite?:
  Some Historical and Theoretical Perspectives"

• 4:00 - 4:15 p.m.

• Break

• 4:15 - 5:30 p.m.

• Panel on the Future of Rural
  and Environmental Sociology

• Kevin Wehr, California State University, Sacramento
  

• Douglas Jackson-Smith, Utah State University
  

• Rachel Schurman, University of Illinois
  

• 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

• Dinner

• Lawrence Busch, Master of Ceremonies, Michigan