Dr. Algernon Austin

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – (September 26, 2008) – Alabama State University’s doctoral program in Educational, Leadership, Policy and Law will begin its Doctoral Seminar Series on Sept. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in the John L. Buskey Heath Sciences building. 

Dr. Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy Program at the Economic Policy Institute, will present the lecture titled, “The Good News about Black Students and the Challenges Ahead.”

Austin is a sociologist of racial relations with a specialization on black Americans. Prior to joining the Economic Policy Institute, he was assistant director of research at the Foundation Center and a senior fellow at the Demos think tank. He received a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Wesleyan University, a master’s degree and doctoral degree in sociology from Northwestern University.

Austin is the author of Getting It Wrong: How Black Public Intellectuals Are Failing Black America and Achieving Blackness: Race, Black Nationalism, and Afrocentrism in the Twentieth Century. He has published scholarly articles in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Qualitative Sociology, the Journal of African American Studies, and Race, Gender and Class.

The seminar is free and open to the public. For more information, call (334) 229-4659.