Noted sociologist to deliver fifth annual Maxwell-Roddey Lecture

Charles Willie, the Charles William Eliot Professor of Education, emeritus, at Harvard University, will give the fifth annual Bertha Maxwell-Roddey Distinguished Africana Lecture at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 16, in EPIC, Room G256.

Willie, a noted sociologist, has researched desegregation, high education, public health, race relations, urban community problems and family life. Before joining Harvard University in 1974, he was a faculty member and administrator at Syracuse University for more than 25 years.

A native of Dallas, Texas, Willie graduated from Morehouse College in 1948, where he was a classmate of Martin Luther King Jr. He earned a doctorate in sociology from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 1957. A prolific scholar and researcher, Willie is the co-author of “Grassroots Social Action: Lessons in People Power Movements,” published in 2008, and the 2006 work “The Black College Mystique.”

In addition, Willie has provided expert commentary for NBC Today, CBS This Morning, Good Morning America and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation.” He is the 2005 recipient of the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Scholarship Award, and he has been awarded 13 honorary degrees.

Following the free, public talk on Oct. 16, there will be a reception. The Bertha Maxwell-Roddey Distinguished Africana Lecture, sponsored by the Africana Studies Department, honors its namesake for her pioneering contributions to the development of Africana studies as an academic discipline at UNC Charlotte as the department’s founding chair; she also helped build black cultural institutions in the greater Charlotte area and nationally.