Adam Weinberg '87

Majors: Sociology and History

Ph.D. Northwestern University, Sociology

Where do you currently live? How did you arrive at the geographical location where you are? I live in Hamilton, NY. I came here 8 years ago to teach at Colgate Univeristy. After attending Bowdoin, I only looked at small liberal arts colleges.

What is your current occupation or position? Please describe what you do. I am the Dean of the College. My job description is simple: I am responsible for everything that happens to a Colgate student from the moment they are admitted to Colgate to the moment they graduate. We have a dean of the faculty and a director of athletics. I basically oversee all the rest. I oversee our student affairs rograms. I am also responsible for the mood of the campus. As such, I am typically involved in whatever crisis is gripping campus at a given moment.

What did you do after graduation? After Bowdoin, I spent a year traveling through Europe. It was wonderful. I studied at Cambridge, tended bar at a small pub, washed windows, and generally learned a lot about myself. I learned that I had somewhat competiting passions for the world of ideas and the world of action. I wanted to be both an actor in social change, but I also love the process of removing myself from the world to engage in reflection and thought. It was a true growth period of my life. I always encourage my Colgate students to do the same.

I then went to Washington to work on Capital Hill, where I quickly became disillusioned with politics. I had always thought that I wanted to spend my life involved in politics and social change. After Washington, I was stumped. A few Bowdoin professors suggested that I think about graduate school. I had developed a passion for sociology at Bowdoin. When I asked myself a simple question: who has been a role model? Whom do I want to be like when I grow up? The answer was simple: Professors McEwen and Bell. They always seemed to blend teaching, research, and social action in ways that allowed them to be actors in the world of change (read policy) and the world of ideas. My Bowdoin classmates tease me that I have spent 15 years trying to become the Craig McEwen of Colgate. They are not all wrong. My Bowdoin professors were great role models. They also blended careers with family. Everybody should read Professor Bell's essay on raising her children and schools.

I enrolled at Northwestern hoping to find a way to blend a career at the intersection of education and democracy. I wrote a disseration on my experiences working as a community organizer around toxic chemical pollution issues. It was a wonderful experience. I spent half of my time working as a community organizer. I spent the rest of the time sitting at the Northwestern library reading great books and writing mediocre essays. In between I taught classes which allowed me to be a scholar and community organizer at the same time. I was in heaven.

I also discoved service learning. Service learning seemed to be a great way to blend my interests in research, my passion for teaching, and my need to be involved in social action. I taught in a field school that gave students academic credit for working in non-profits. I quickly learned that the classroom enhanced the internship. They brought the sociological imagination to the internship which allowed them to understand the setting better. It also gave them intellectual tools to actually help the non-profit. I learned that volunteers often drain non-profits of scare resources. But students could do real intellectual projects that added value to the work of the non-profits. Likewise the internship enhanced the classroom. Students had experiences that allowed them to really grapple with deep social theory. They also came to class deseparate to talk.

What is the most worthwhile academic/professional experience you have had? Please explain. When I came to Colgate, the college was struggling with a downtown village that was falling apart. I spent six years, teaching sociology classes that got students involved in the revitalization of the downtown. Over 300 of my students did research for grants, worked with micro-businesses, helped communities engage in community visioning. Over the period, Colgate helped attract 11 million dollars of money into the community. We started two non-profits, rebuilt the downtown, and helped local people start neat businesses. In the course of doing it, my students learned about community development up close. I published a number of papers on community development.

These links will take you to a few articles about my work:

Has studying anthropology impacted your perspective (personally, professionally or other)? If so, how? Sociology and academe have been wonderful to me. I have been allowed to change as my needs and desires changed. I have worked at a local level on community projects. I have served on task forces in Washington for the Clinton Administration. I helped launch a community service center called the COVE. A couple of years ago, I worked with a former student who plays in the NBA to launch a non-profit called Democracy Matters. We are working to engage young people in politics (www.democracymatters.org). Along the way, I took a year and half basically off to stay at home with my daughter. For six years, I was the person who took my kids to school and picked them up in the afternoon.