BARBARA ANN SCOTT

Autobiographical Statement

Being nominated for an award honoring the lifework of Alfred McClung Lee triggered many memories. Among them, the time I first met Al and Betty Lee when I was a very junior member of the New Paltz faculty and still a graduate student. A] and Betty were brought to the New Paltz campus in the Early 1970s by their long-time friend and my mentor, the late Professor Kenneth Skelton, for Some guest teaching and informal conversations with faculty and students. Their impact upon me ideologically and morally was profound and proved long-lasting.

Soon after, I joined the fledgling Association for Humanist Sociology (I may have even been a charter member); used several of Al's books in various courses I taught; supported enthusiastically Al's insurgent run for the ASA presidency; and kept up a correspondence and friendship with both the Lees.

It is no exaggeration to say that the humanist values which inform my teaching, my research and my political activism in short, my life, in the past quarter century were first and foremost learned from my association with the Lees. Al's relentless critique, in particular, of the technocratic trends Within sociology and sister science disciplines helped to inspire my choice of dissertation topic, the eventual completion and publication of two books on higher education Crisis Management in American Higher Education (1983), winner of the Albert Salomon Award from the New School for Social Research, and
"The Liberal Arts in a Time of Crisis (1991).

The latter was also the title of a two-day-long conference I co-chaired and organized in 1981, which examined the decline of literacy and liberal learning in the face of increasingly technocratic, anti-intellectual and anti-humanistic types of curricula and pedagogy. The event drew over 300 people from a Tri-state area, had some 80 different speakers including Al and Betty Lee [Al gave a masterful keynote address on the corruption of intellectuals in academic bureaucracies], and inspired the preparation of a book based on the conference proceedings, which includes articles by both the Lees.

Currently I am a tenured Associate Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at New Paltz; in 1992, 1 was coordinator of the multi-disciplinary Women's Studies Program and chair of its annual conference on the theme of "Women and Power," Since joining the faculty in 1972, 1 have taught graduate and undergraduate courses always with a humanist and multicultural value perspective in such areas a political sociology, social stratification, sociological theory, mass media, women's studies, war/peace studies, and the sociology of education. Response to my teaching from students has been consistently favorable over the years, and I was nominated from my college for the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching,

I hold M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York; did post-doctoral study at the Harvard/ MIT Summer Program on Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control 1988]; and was a visiting scholar and staff researcher in 1986 at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, D.C. I have received research grants from the American Association of University Women, the American Council of Learned Societies and the State University of New York; and in 1988 won second prize in the national Quest for Peace writing contest sponsored by the Citizen Education for Peace Pro ject of the University of California at Irvine.

Throughout the quarter century I have been at SUNY New Paltz, I have tried to merge my research, writing and teaching with my distinctly political passion for peace and social justice, This has often been problematic [as you can imagine and has led to my being rather marginalized within the faculty and occasionally red-baited. A poignant case in point: I was the sole member of the New Paltz faculty to speak publicly against the U.S.-led war on Iraq [even former anti-Vietnam war radical activists retreated into silence], and soon found myself pilloried by the media, area politicians and the "patriotic" citizens of the Hudson Valley.

My experience before, during and after the Gulf War led to a further political awakening and, one might say, maturation. Increasingly, I have turned my attention to studying, teaching, writing about, and organizing against U.S- imperialism -and war crimes, which are chronically camouflaged by the mass media. As a long-time admirer and supporter of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, I have been working closely with the International Action Center, which he founded, on a range of peace, and ,justice issues, using many of their publications and videos in course-, I teach, and stimulating activism among my students. [For example, I brought two busloads of students to New York City to attend the International War Crimes Tribunal which Ramsey Clark organized in February 1992; and have used the report of the Tribunal as well as Ramsey Clark's book on the Gulf War as texts in several classes. I More recently, I have been organizing against the "continuing war" of sanctions against Iraq and the embargo/ blockade of Cuba-both of which are "crimes against humanity"; trying to expose the Pentagon-and media cover-up of the use of deleted uranium weapons in the Gulf War [a "nuclear war," to Dr. Helen Caldicott] and NASA's nuclear madness With its planned Cassini space probe. [The latter topics I will be speaking about at the AHS meetings.]

Anti-nuclear education and activism was, in fact, one of the earliest manifestations of my radically humanist politics. In the early 1980s I introduced the first nuclear issues course at SUNY New Paltz, developed a model Peace Studies Curriculum [which a timid administration declined to adopt]; taught a number of de facto "peace studies" courses which members of the off-campus community were welcome to audit [and many did]; organized and chaired the Mid-Hudson (NY1 chapter of Educators for Social Responsibility, and was a principal instigator of student antinuclear and anti-war activism on campus.

Currently, I belong to a dozen professional/academic associations [in peace education, mass media, women's studies and the social sciences]. I have also long been active in a variety of peace, feminist, environmental and social justice NGO's; among them: WILPF, Women Strike for Peace, Peace Action, CISPES, NOW, IFCO, the Catskill Alliance for Peace, Caribbean and Latin American Support Project [CLASPS] Women for Mutual Security [on whose board I serve], World Federalists, UN/NGO Committee on the Status of Women, GREEN, FAIR, and many others. For the past eight years I have been closely affiliated with the shortwave station based in Costa Rica, RADIO FOR PEACE INTERNATIONAL, and its subsidiary, FEMINIST INTERNATIONAL RADIO, as a member of the International Advisory Board helping to create alternatives to corporatizing media.

One of my least-heralded roles [especially to the SUNY New Paltz administration] has been that of campus "impresario," organizing college-wide forums on important socio-political topics and with internationally recognized speakers, such as- former U.S. Attorney General RAMSEY CLARK, anti-nuclear activist DR. HELEN CALDICOTT, former Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. ROBERT MULLER, the late historian CHRISTOPHER LASCH, BELLA ABZUG and DESSIMA WILLIAMS [who keynoted the 1993 "Women and Power" conference I chaired], the late economist DAVID GORDON, ROGER WILKINS [who spoke at a series of forums on the economic crisis], former CIA agents PHILIP AGEE and JOHN STOCKWELL, BARBARA GARSON, MICHAEL PARENTI, former head of the Christic Institute DANIEL SHEEHAN, and JEFF COHEN, Executive Director of F.A.I.R.

Over the past quarter century, I have assumed this impresario role more so than any other single member of the New Paltz faculty, taking responsibility for everything from fund-raising to publicity and community outreach. In addition to drawing large audiences from on- and off-campus, these events have brought very favorable publicity to the sociology department and to the college. The strategic purpose, for me, has always been to provide greater visibility to the political left and to promote humanistic values and social justice.

Two books are currently in a gestation stage: one about women's peace activism, and the other a critique of the war crimes of the U.S. national security state.