2007 President Is a Defender of the “Poorest of the Poor”

I first met Frances Fox Piven in the early 1980s. I was a struggling freelance writer; she was an intellectual star. Everything about her intimidated me: Her habit of not saying anything until she had thought it through, her sociological erudition, her relentless work ethic, her fearlessness in the face of authority, and—if I may mention it—her drop-dead good looks. I am not sure why she took an interest in me, but within months she had convinced me that the highest feminist priority was the defense of the poorest of the poor, that is, women on welfare. And she had somehow inveigled me into working with her on the program of the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), over which she then presided.

Cora B. Marrett, senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and long-time ASA member, has been appointed Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), making her one of seven directorate heads.

As the result of a major petition drive, including signatures from two-thirds of the ASA Council and 13 ASA presidents and the necessary number of votes in the May 2006 ASA election, ASA announces the change in name of two of its major awards: the Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award is now the W.E.B. DuBois Career Award for Distinguished Scholarship, and the DuBois-Johnson- Frazier Award is now the Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award.