Panel session with posters and reception to honor Olaf F. Larson, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University. When Olaf Larson passed away last November just three months shy of being 108 years old, he was the RSS’s oldest past... [ view full abstract ]
Panel session with posters and reception to honor Olaf F. Larson, Professor Emeritus, Cornell University. When Olaf Larson passed away last November just three months shy of being 108 years old, he was the RSS’s oldest past president, the oldest member of the RSS, and the oldest rural sociologist in the U.S. To put his time into perspective, Olaf was at the meeting when the vote occurred to establish the Rural Sociological Society. During his 82 year long career, he served as Vice Chair of the committee that organized the first World Congress of Rural Sociology in the early 1960s, he was received the RSS Distinguished Rural Sociologist award in 1985, and he wrote the history of the first unit of the federal government devoted to sociological research, to name but a few. In 2010, the RSS Graduate Student Paper Award was renamed in his honor. This session will have a panel with brief presentations about Olaf’s enduring legacy and the changes that rural sociology has seen during that time. Following the panel presentations, the session will conclude with a small reception. Sponsored by Senior Rural Sociologists RIG.
Panel:
Doug Jackson-Smith, Ohio State University
JoAnn Jaffe, University of Regina
Cornelia Flora, Iowa State University
David Brown, Cornell University
Tom Rudel, Rutgers University
Lou Swanson, Colorado State University
