faculty excellence Phil Shockley Dunlap, OSU Regents professor, is one of the founders of the field that studies the relationship between human societies and the environment. The discipline took off in the 1970s after the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, generated a growing attention to environmental problems. His publications, including the Handbook of Environmental Sociology, are staples for any course on the subject. “I tell students I’m trying to raise their awareness and understanding of environmental problems, but my job is certainly not to turn them into environmental activists,” he says. “Ironically, I just heard from a student who said, ‘I want you to know that I’ve been actively recycling for two months as a result of your class.’” A California native, Dunlap graduated from San Francisco State University in 1966 and earned a doctoral degree from the University of Oregon in 1973. He spent 30 years teaching at Washington State University in Pullman before teaching in Finland and joining OSU in January 2006. Dunlap has seen the field evolve from a focus on specific problems such as water and air pollution to a broader concern with environmental degradation, ranging from local toxic contamination to tropical deforestation and global climate change. As a past president of the International Sociological Association’s environmental sociology group, Dunlap has stimulated interest in his discipline worldwide, particularly in Korea, Japan and China. Despite his position at the forefront of his field, Dunlap says he was mostly just lucky to be in the right position at the right time, but he is pleased at the growth of his study. “It is exciting to see my field spread internationally, most recently in China, where I helped organize an environmental sociology conference last summer,” he says. “One might say the future of the world, to a considerable degree, depends upon how well China deals with its environmental problems over the next 10 or 20 years. I feel privileged to have the opportunity to help stimulate the growth of interest in environmental issues there.” Matt Elliott Right Man at the Right Time Talk to any environmental sociology professor, and it’s a good bet he knows the name Riley Dunlap. College of Arts and Sciences 20
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