Newly hired assistant professor wins prestigious international award

Newly hired assistant professor wins prestigious international award

BY DAWN DORSEY
Special to the Rice News

D. Michael Lindsay, who will join the Rice sociology department faculty this summer, recently won a prestigious award from the International Sociological Association.

D. Michael Lindsay

Lindsay, currently completing a doctoral degree in sociology at Princeton University as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow, placed first in the fourth Worldwide Competition for Junior Sociologists, for researchers younger than 35.

“This is a major honor,” said Elizabeth Long, department chair of sociology. “The global nature of the competition, along with the award’s intense level of competitiveness, makes this a stunning accomplishment for someone at the start of his career.”

The paper for which he won the award, “Liminal Organization in Elite Ranks: Linking Societal Power to Religious Faith,” was based on Lindsay’s dissertation research, which explores the role of religious conviction in the lives of societal leaders. Research involved interviews with more than 350 elites, all of whom are part of the evangelical movement.

“This is the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind ever,” Lindsay said. “Nearly all the empirical research within sociology on elites is 50 years old, and none of it has attended to the role of religion or spirituality in motivating elite action.”

Lindsay, the author of several books, articles and research reports, specializes in issues surrounding elites, religion and culture. A Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude graduate of Baylor University, he earned a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was a presidential scholar.  He then earned an additional degree at the University of Oxford as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar before returning to Princeton for his doctoral studies.

“Michael’s paper is an exciting theoretical contribution that both extends the concept of liminality — not usually applied to organizations, but rather to identities in process — and captures an important aspect of elite social power,” Long said. “As you can imagine, our department is extremely happy to have a young scholar of this distinction join our ranks.”

Lindsay will attend the award ceremony in South Africa July 24. He also has been invited to participate in a thematic session on “The Religious Right and American Politics” at the annual American Sociological Association meeting next year.

Effective July 1, Lindsay will be assistant professor of sociology and assistant director and faculty fellow at Rice’s Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life. He will lead classes within his main interests of elites and leadership, sociology of culture, political sociology, sociology of religion and social theory.