What follows is a narrative discussion of the professional and personal life of Jim Richardson, organized around areas of activity. The initial focus is on Jim as a scholar and teacher, followed by a description of him as one who works for faculty rights and to improve the higher education system through his work with AAUP and the Nevada Faculty Alliance. Also included is a discussion of Jim's professional and public service activities, as well as brief comments on some aspects of his personal life.
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RESEARCH, TEACHING, AND SCHOLARSHIP
Jim Richardson defines himself first and foremost as a scholar, teacher, and researcher. He has been an active teacher for 30 years, with most of the time being spent at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he is currently Professor of Sociology and Judicial Studies. He directs the Master of Judicial Studies Degree Program, which has nearly 100 trial judges working on degrees, and some 75 graduates. He is on the faculty for the large Interdisciplinary Social Psychology Doctoral Program, and also teaches in the undergraduate and masters programs in Sociology.
Richardson has served a year as a Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics Sociology Department, and has had a Fulbright Fellowship at University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Department of Psychology of Culture and Religion, both of which appointments involved teaching and research. While in England for the year he gave presentations at universities in Ireland, Scotland, England, and Sweden, as well as consulted with the World Council of Churches in Geneva. While in Nijmegen he gave presentations in England as well as in Munich, the latter as part of a United Nations symposium on new religions.
He also spent a sabbatical year in Australia, where he had appointments at the University of Queensland Law School and Department of Religious Studies, the University of Sydney Law School and Department of Religious Studies, and with the Criminology Department at the Melbourne University. While in Australia he gave presentations at over a dozen universities and colleges, as well as several dozen media interviews. He also was invited to make presentations on American evidence law to meetings of appeal court judges in four Australian states, as well as to continuing legal education courses to attorneys.
Richardson has developed a strong publication record during his professional career, with six books and over 150 journal articles in refereed journals and chapters in books, a number of which have been reprinted, including in other countries (see attached vita for details). He has also made presentations of his research to professional groups in over a dozen countries, and regularly publishes in overseas publications. He is called on often by major news media for comments on events concerning religious movements and other topics.
Jim has several special areas of research and scholarly interest. He is an internationally known expert in the area of minority religious movements who is called on to make presentations at professional conferences all over the world. He also has a law degree and combines this area of interest with his sociology of religion specialties. Thus, much of his recent work has focused on freedom of religion issues and on how legal systems are used to exert social control over minority religions. Richardson also has a specialty of social science evidence, teaching this in the masters program for judges and also doing research and writing in this area.
Richardson has been successful at grant writing, obtaining grant support for the Masters of Judicial Studies Program as well as for various research projects over the years of his career. He is called on to review grants for federal agencies in his field, and also regularly reviews manuscripts for professional journals and publication houses. He consults on legal cases of various types, and has served as an expert witness in a number of cases, including ones in England and in Moscow, Russia.
The University of Nevada, Reno, Foundation named Richardson a Foundation Professor in 1986, one of the highest honors available to faculty. The award carries a stipend and release time for further research for a period of three years.
While Jim Richardson has been involved in AAUP-related activities throughout his career in Nevada (see NFA activities), he has also been quite active at the national level of AAUP. He has served as an elected member of Council from District 1, and also was invited by then-President Linda Pratt to be on the Executive Committee, where he served for two years prior to a sabbatical in Australia. He served on the Government Relations Committee for a year before being named chair of the committee by then-AAUP President Jim Perley in 1995. He was reappointed as chair for a three year term, which he relinquished when elected AAUP President in 1998.
Jim also was appointed by Jim Perley to the AAUP Commission on Governance and Affirmative Action Policy that reviewed the University of California Regents' action to abolish affirmative action in the UC System, and which produced a much-heralded report. He served as chair of the recruitment committee which recommended hiring Ruth Flower as director of Government Relations for the AAUP. He served as a liaison for the Government Relations Committee with Committee A's subcommittee on Intellectual Property and he is also on the Distance Education Subcommittee of the Government Relations Committee. (See report in May/June 1998 Academe.)
While serving on the Government Relations Committee Jim traveled to a number of states to make presentations about lobbying and to work on specific issues. He has made AAUP sponsored presentations in California, Oregon, Idaho, Texas, and Oklahoma, as well as at several national and regional AAUP meetings, and has consulted on government relations issues in a number of other states.
Jim's tenure as chair of the Government Relations Committee involved a shift of focus to include more state level lobbying efforts, to complement the excellent work being done on the national level by AAUP. Jim's considerable experience as Chief Lobbyist for the Nevada Faculty Alliance for 16 years has served him well in promoting this new focus of AAUP activity.
NEVADA FACULTY ALLIANCE ACTIVITIES
Jim Richardson has been affiliated with AAUP since the beginning of his professional career, and helped establish the AAUP State Conference in Nevada, now known as the Nevada Faculty Alliance. He served as the first State President of the Nevada Faculty Alliance (NFA), formed in 1983 as a joint effort of AAUP and NEA, and he has been member of the State Board ever since.
The NFA disaffiliated from NEA in the mid-1980s, leaving NFA as solely affiliated with AAUP and functioning as an AAUP State Conference.
Jim has helped develop the unique legal defense policy of NFA, which means that all members have limited legal insurance on personnel matters, and may obtain full funding for legal actions by a vote of the NFA State Board (details can be found on the NFA website at http://www.unr.edu/nfa). Jim has also helped develop an associated Political Action Committee called NFA-PAC, which is involved in regents' races (they are elected in Nevada), as well as selected legislative and state-wide races. NFA leaders consider the NFA-PAC an important complement to the lobbying efforts that have been quite successful. Jim helps edit the Alliance, the award-winning state newspaper of the NFA.
Jim led the effort to obtain the right to collectively bargain for community colleges in Nevada. He was involved, as well, in the first ever successful bargaining election at Truckee Meadows Community College, and also helped with final negotiations after a protracted bargaining effort.
Perhaps the most recognized of Jim's activities concerns lobbying in the Nevada Legislature. Jim has had partial release time negotiated by the NFA for the past nine sessions of the biannual Nevada Legislature, and spends several days each week of the months-long session in Carson City lobbying for higher education issues, testifying on a regular basis, and participating in the development of legislation, with a special focus on budgetary matters. He works with the other members of the System lobbying team in this effort. Jim also has organized regular meetings with the Governor and his budget staff, as well as with key legislators, about higher education needs. This year, Jim was appointed by Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn to represent NFA on a legislatively established committee to study higher education funding.
Jim Richardson is involved in several public service activities. He consults with entities such as the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, D.C. about how to better educate judges, especially in dealing with such topics as statistics and social science evidence. He has made presentations on judicial education around the U.S. and in several foreign countries. He has been involved in discussions with Congressional committees and law-enforcement agencies on such topics as what went wrong in Waco, and he is interviewed regularly by the print and electronic media on a wide range of topics, from minority religions and "cults" to the death penalty, as well as on political issues in his home state of Nevada.
Jim has a long history of involvement with the Nevada Legislature, working on a number of issues such as "motor voter" legislation successfully passed several years ago, and a wide range of issues dealing with higher education, working as chief lobbyist for the Nevada Faculty Alliance for the past nine sessions, and representing the Washoe County Democratic Party before that, during his term as chair of the county party. He has testified over 250 times before legislative committees in Nevada during his tenure as chief lobbyist of the Nevada Faculty Alliance (1985-97).
He was appointed by Governor Richard Bryan to serve for six years (1983-89) as chair of the Benefits Committee of the State of Nevada, which directed the health benefit program for all state employees in Nevada, handling over $50 million dollars per year by the end of his term. He also served from 1981 to 1993 on the Board of Trustees of the Washoe County Law Library.
Richardson consults on a regular basis with attorneys in Nevada, the U.S., and overseas in cases involving minority religions, as well as other matters in the social psychology of law. He has testified a number of times in state and federal courts, as well as in England and Russia, and has helped write several amicus briefs filed in major cases on appeal within state and federal judicial systems.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE ACTIVITIES
During his years at the University of Nevada, Reno, Jim Richardson has been heavily involved in faculty governance. He chaired the Faculty Senate in 1976-77 and served on its Executive Board for four years during that decade. He also has served on nearly all of the senate policy committees during his 29 years at the University of Nevada, including long-term service on the Salary and Benefits Committee.
Jim Richardson helped established the Senate Institutional Studies and Budget Committee and served as its co-chair for the first few years. This committee reviewed budget issues and has been a strong voice for faculty in this important arena. He also chaired the System-wide Compensation Committee for years, as one of UNR's two representatives. This committee has had the responsibility for developing the salary and benefit request package for the University and Community College System of Nevada which is presented to the Governor and Nevada Legislature every two years.
Richardson has served on a number of other university committees, including Promotion and Tenure at the college and university levels, the University Planning and Budget Team, and a number of search committees, including the last presidential search committee.
He serves, as well, on the University committee that supervises a large interdisciplinary program in Social Psychology. He served as the first Director of the Center for Justice Studies, a new research and service arm of the university established in 1992. He directs the large and unique Masters in Judicial Studies Degree Program, which has nearly 100 trial judges from around the country enrolled. This program has graduated about 75 judges since inception of the program in 1986, and two-thirds of those have published their thesis in law reviews or academic journals.
Richardson also served on a Regents' committee to revise the collective bargaining rules some years ago which made changes allowing bargaining within the community colleges. He was involved in bargaining the first contract, which was for Truckee Meadows Community College, including service on the bargaining team during the last part of this lengthy process.
Another major Regents' committee on which Jim served was charged with revamping the retirement program for the System, adding more options and allowing more direct control by the faculty member of his or her retirement assets.
Jim has also been active within professional societies in his areas of research and scholarship. He has served as President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, a 700 member national organization. He was a member of the Council of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion for several years, which is the largest such organization in the world. He served for several years as one of two U.S. representatives on the International Society for the Sociology of Religion. He was one of the founders of the Society for the Sociological Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe, which was established in 1995. He has also been on the editorial boards of a number of professional journals, and has edited special issues for several.
Last but not least, the lobbying activities of Jim Richardson should be mentioned in this section. He has been lobbying the Nevada Legislature on behalf of faculty interests since the early 1970s, with his lobbying becoming nearly full-time during the sessions starting in 1985. Jim works with the lobbying team from the higher education system promoting the budget request and helping deal with the myriad of issues that arise each session that affect higher education in Nevada.
Jim
Richardson was born in South Carolina during WWII (his father worked
at the navy yard in Charleston) and lived there for the first five
years of his life. Then his family returned to Texas, where he was
raised in Lubbock, Texas, attending schools there, including Texas
Tech University, where he obtained a B.A. and an M.A. in
Sociology.
The doctorate in Sociology was earned from Washington State University in 1968, after which Jim took his present job at the University of Nevada, Reno. While working in Reno, Jim attended night law school at Nevada School of Law, Old College, receiving his law degree in 1986, the same year he passed the Nevada bar exam.
Jim is married to the former Cynthia Brown of Rising Star, Texas, who is a dedicated first grade teacher in Reno. She has a M.S. in Child Development and has developed a number of programs in early childhood education during her career.
Cynthia and Jim have one daughter, Tamatha, who graduated from Harvard Law School and is planning a career in public interest law. She is married to Richard Schreinert, from Philadelphia, who is a University of Maryland, College Park graduate in Computer Science, owner of ImageMakers, a computer software company, and an MBA student at USC.
Jim has been active in Democratic Party politics for years, serving a County Chair of the Democratic Party for a term in the late 1970s, and as a member of the State Central Committee for years. In 1992 Jim was a Clinton delegate to the National Democratic Convention in New York. He has worked for candidates in many races over the years of his political involvement, doing everything from political polling to walking precincts.
Cynthia and Jim enjoy travel a great deal, as well as outdoor activities, especially hiking. Jim also enjoys trout fishing and is an avid fan of the San Francisco 49ers (not an easy thing in the fall of 1999!) and the San Francisco Giants.