Cedric Herring
Cedric Herring is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. He also is a faculty associate at the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.
His work at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs is "my way of having an impact beyond voting without necessarily being an advocate for a particular position."
Professor Herring's areas of interest and expertise include social policy, labor force issues and policies, stratification and inequality, and the sociology of black Americans.
Professor Herring has published widely on topics such as social welfare and affirmative action. He is the author of Splitting the Middle: Political Alienation, Acquiescence, and Activism. He is the editor of African Americans and the Public Agenda: The Paradoxes of Public Policy, and the co-editor of Empowerment in Chicago: Grassroots Participation in Economic Development and Poverty Alleviation.
Professor Herring has received support for his research from the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation. Also, he has shared his findings in community forums, at press conferences, in newspapers and magazines, on radio and television, with community groups, and before legislators and other government officials.
"I have always been interested in social inequality, why it occurs, why it continues to exist, what can be done about it," he said.
Professor Herring participated in hearings before the state's advisory committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on the status of affirmative action in higher education. After his and others' testimony, the commission recommended to President Clinton against weakening affirmative action requirements.
"I believe that I made a difference. There was an impact on the final outcome," he said.
Professor Herring is also very interested in the international aspects of public policy. In 2004, he was featured in a Chicago Defender article entitled "Study: Blacks, Whites Differ on Foreign Policy." He has also drafted a proposal to create "The Leadership Exchange," an international exchange program for opinion leaders in North America and Europe.
"Everybody talks about globalization, but they don't seriously make the effort to learn about what leaders and institutions are like elsewhere in the world," he said. "We actually could learn and benefit from what other countries are doing."
Recently, Professor Herring conducted "The Health and Economic Conditions Survey" for the Illinois Department of Public Health and drafted a preliminary report based on the findings. In 2004 he was the author of "Bleaching Out the Color Line: The Skin Color Continuum and the Tripartite Model of Race," which appeared in Race and Society, the official journal of the Association of Black Sociologists.
Professor Herring received his B.A. from University of Houston in 1980, his M.A. from University of Michigan in 1981, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1985.
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois
815 W. Van Buren St.
Chicago, IL 60607
Phone: 312-413-3761
