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New Faculty: Richard Sullivan Takes Civil Rights Trip
Dr. Richard Sullivan
Dr. Richard Sullivan
Richard Sullivan is the newest faculty member to join the Department of Sociology & Anthropology. He recently earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he specialized in political sociology, social movements, and labor studies. Sullivan’s dissertation examined the social movement dynamics of labor organizing. He will be teaching Introductory Sociology, Social Movements, and Social Problems for the department in his first year, and in the future he will teach new courses in political sociology and labor studies. Sullivan recently served as faculty mentor for the Office of Student Life’s “Ride to Freedom: Civil Rights Trip” to Memphis, TN. “As a movement scholar and someone personally interested in the struggles of powerless people seeking justice, I thought it would be a great experience,” Sullivan explained. “I also felt, as a new faculty member that this would be a good opportunity to get to know ISU students better by spending time outside the classroom setting.”

 

 

The trip was planned, organized, and run almost entirely by a committee of students who had been on the trip the year before. Faculty roles were to participate actively in activities the students planned, to be resources for students, and to help out in the event of an emergency. Sullivan delivered a background talk on the civil rights movement on the first night.

One of the themes of the trip was stretching beyond participants’ comfort level. This was facilitated was by sleeping on the floor, having modest meals, and being challenged to rely on others in small groups—this was a nod to the hardships and challenges confronted by participants in the civil rights struggles. Especially impressive was the way the trip's program and themes strived to link the history of the black civil rights movement and its lessons to civil rights struggles taking place today (e.g. gays and lesbians, workers, and the poor).

According to Sullivan, the highlights of the trip included a tour of the National Civil Rights Museum; a forum at the University of Memphis, during which issues of racial profiling and the importance of community service were discussed; a service project in which participants produced books on tape for children at St. Jude's Hospital; and an amazing BBQ rib dinner followed by an evening of dancing on Beale Street.

Sullivan said he was very impressed with the amount of work the students put into the trip and the skill with which they led it. “It turns out I was inspired as much by the students who had taken five days out to learn about the struggle for civil rights as I was by what I learned about the movement,” he explained. “I was very impressed by the quality of students on the trip, particularly their earnest desire and commitment to change the world. It was good to learn that their questions about the future and what might be done to make the world a better place are not much different than those of many of my peers. It was rewarding to get to know the students on a more personal level and I came away with a deep respect for the students I met."
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