Thad Williamson
Assistant Professor
Room 135 Jepson Hall Thad Williamson joined the Jepson faculty as assistant professor of leadership studies in 2005 and quickly established himself as a sought-after professor and a civic activist. In the News
Office: (804) 287-6542
Fax: (804) 287-6062
His latest book, Sprawl, Justice, and Citizenship: The Civic Costs of the American Way of Life, will be published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. The book combines the use of both normative political theory and empirical investigation to assess the benefits and costs of sprawling development patterns in the United States. Empirically, the book uses Census Data and the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey to assess the impact of sprawling neighborhoods on quality of life, social trust, political ideology and political participation. Normatively, the book critically compares how utilitarian, liberal egalitarian and civic republican normative perspectives assess sprawl as a policy issue. The dissertation on which the book is based was the co-winner of the American Political Science Association’s 2005 Harold D. Lasswell Award for best doctoral thesis in the field of public policy.
Williamson serves on the board of the International Partnership for Service-Learning and Leadership, a New York-based nonprofit that sponsors programs worldwide in which college students combine study abroad with service learning. On the UR campus, he has been a faculty advisor for the Collegiate Disaster Relief Team, and has helped design service-learning component of trips taken by UR students to the Gulf Coast and New Orleans to assist in Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.
His professional experience includes work in Washington at both the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives. He has written on current issues for a wide variety of popular and scholarly publications and published three books including Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era (Routledge, 2002), a comprehensive overview of the sources of and possible remedies for community economic instability in the United States.
Teaching:
Justice and Civil Society
Foundations of Leadership Studies
Social Movements
Leadership and Governance in Metropolitan America
Research:
Contemporary social movements
Long-term social and historical change
Political and economic institutions
Urban politics
Education:
Ph.D., political science, Harvard University, 2004
M.A., religion, Union Theological Seminary, 1998
A.B., history and religious studies, Brown University, 1992
Academic and Professional Activities:
- Associate of Editorial Collective, Dollars & Sense Magazine
- Board member, Cross Currents/Association for Religion and Intellectual Life
