Burawoy and Fritz Elected to International Leadership Positions

The International Sociological Association (ISA) elected ASA members Michael Burawoy and Jan Marie Fritz as two of its five new vice presidents at the recent ISA World Congress in South Africa. ASA is excited to see these individuals elected for such esteemed and influential international positions.

The ISA, a 3,700 member organization, also elected (with four-year terms) a new president, five vice presidents, and 16 others to its Executive Committee. The new president, Michel Wiewiorka of France, is at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. His responsibilities include developing intellectual unity with consideration for diversity; taking action against inequality in our discipline, developing new links with other disciplines and associations and being personally involved with many a variety of ISA activities.

Burawoy, ISA’s Vice President on National Associations, is the Goldman Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at University of California- Berkeley and a former ASA president. With this new position, Burawoy’s responsibilities within ISA are to: organize regional meetings with representation from different individuals around the world, publish papers from these meetings, encour-age thematic national conferences to which ISA research committees would be invited, help national associations develop websites and newsletters, and continue to promote public sociology.

Fritz, ISA’s new Vice President on Membership and Finance, is a professor of planning and affiliated with the Department of Women’s Studies and the Department of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati. She is a former president of the Clinical Sociology Association, a former chair of ASA’s Sociological Practice section, and a past president of the ISA research division on clinical sociology. Her responsibilities within ISA are: to increase collaborative teaching, research and consultancy opportunities for ISA members, represent ISA in international deliberations, and approve upon ISA involvement in locations where the ISA presence is limited or non-existent. She is representing the ISA to the United Nations and working on the contract for the next ISA World Congress in Goteborg, Sweden.

Burawoy and Fritz met in Montréal, during ASA’s Annual Meeting to discuss collaborative efforts, including the development of new national associations in Africa and Asia. They will work with other ISA Executive Committee members from countries such as Nigeria, Brazil, Australia, and South Africa on many of ISA’s initiatives. Also among the new ISA Executive Committee members is Valentine Moghadam, Chief of the Gender Equity and Development Section in UNESCO and the ASA representative to the ISA.

ISA provides opportunities for professors, scholar-practitioners, researchers and graduate students from around the world, fostering international relationships among members, university departments, research organizations and national associations. ISA’s dues structure allows those in economically developed countries to support the participation of those from countries facing difficult economic challenges. Membership rates are favorable for seniors and students. Graduate students particularly will be interested in learning about the expense-paid student laboratories and research paper competitions.