Symposium to focus on U.S. old age policies

Symposium to focus on U.S. old age policiesApril 27, 2004

“Changing Demographics, Stagnant Social Policies” is the title of the fifth annual Maxwell Policy Research Symposium, to be held May 3 and 4 in the Public Events Room, 220 Eggers Hall. The event, which will focus on old-age policies in the United States, is sponsored by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs’ Gerontology Center and Center for Policy Research, along with Syracuse University’s Office of Academic Affairs, Maxwell’s Department of Sociology and Dean’s Office, the American Sociological Association and the National Science Foundation. It will be hosted by Madonna Harrington Meyer, associate professor of sociology in the Maxwell School.

The keynote speaker will be Jill Quadagno, the Mildred and Claude Pepper Eminent Scholar and professor of sociology at Florida State University. She will speak May 3 at 4 p.m. A reception will immediately follow.

Quadagno’s current research focuses on Social Security reform. She recently received an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to conduct research and write a book on national health insurance. She has also been the recipient of grants from the National Institute on Aging and the National Science Foundation. She received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Aging, and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. She is the author of 12 books and more than 50 articles. Her book “The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty” received the award for Outstanding Book on the Subject of Human Rights in North America from the Gustavos Meyers Center for the Study of Human Rights.

Other conference presenters and discussants include scholars from Indiana University, the University of Michigan, Wake Forest University, the University of Florida, Duke University, the University of Illinois, the University of Southern California, University of Maryland, Northeastern Ohio University’s College of Medicine and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Scholars from SU taking part will be: Thomas Dennison, Stacy Dickert-Conlin, Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah A. Freund, Christine Himes, Eric Kingson, Andrew London, Deborah Monahan, John Palmer, Timothy Smeeding, Janet Wilmoth and Douglas Wolf.