Klineberg honored for work on Houston

Klineberg honored for work on Houston

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News Staff
 
Stephen Klineberg, Rice professor of sociology, will be honored at two separate events that highlight the extent of his involvement in the wider Houston community, as well as the continuing impact of the Houston Area Survey that he and his students have been conducting for 27 years.
 
Blueprint Houston will host a “Tribute to Stephen Klineberg” Feb. 19. Blueprint Houston is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building community support for a planning process that makes improvements to Houston’s quality of life and place.
 

STEPHEN KLINEBERG

Speakers at the tribute will include Houston Mayor Bill White; Bob Eury, president of Central Houston, Inc. (a private, nonprofit corporation, formed to lead the planning and implementation of the redevelopment of Houston’s central city area); Ann Hamilton, president of the Houston Endowment; Rick Lowe, founder of Project Row Houses, (a nonprofit organization whose mission is to create community through the celebration of art and African-American history and culture); and Richard Murray, professor of political science at the University of Houston.
 
The second honor comes from AVANCE-Houston, which will hold its Grand Gala 2008 March 28, when the organization celebrates 20 years of sponsoring early childhood and family education programs for at-risk, primarily Hispanic families in Houston. It is planning to honor not only one of the families that have benefited from their programs but also the family of Stephen and Peggy Klineberg. The Klinebergs’ two children, their spouses and five grandchildren will be there as well.
 
Jose Villarreal, executive director of AVANCE-Houston, called Klineberg “a strong proponent of education for all,” adding that he “understands its special importance as families assimilate and gain economic and cultural stability in our community.” He went on to say Klineberg’s “enthusiasm for the bright future of Houston and all its citizens — Latinos and all others — is infectious, and his research aids all of us involved in opening the doors to helping all our citizens achieve their greatest potential.”
 
Klineberg said that tributes from two such distinct organizations reflect the breadth of the issues explored in the Houston Area Survey. “The study began as a one-time project in a spring semester sociology class in 1982,” Klineberg recalled, but it just happened to coincide with the collapse of the oil boom two months later. “That began a time of remarkable transformation in Houston,” he said, and the Houston Area Survey has been tracking the changes and the public’s responses to them ever since.

Sociology chair and professor Elizabeth Long pointed out that both tributes “attest to the value and progressive nature” of Klineberg’s scholarship, “and the positive way it has influenced civic culture in Houston.”
 
“We are indeed profoundly proud of his work,” Long added, “which is exemplary of Rice’s engagement with the community of which it is a part. We also hope that some members of the Rice community will be able to join in one or both of the celebrations.”

The Houston Area Survey fulfills two distinct missions, Klineberg said. It promotes academic sociology, using systematic survey research to analyze the processes of social change, while also encompassing public sociology, which uses the findings to clarify issues of interest and concern to a much wider audience.
 
“We conduct our research for academic reasons — teaching and scholarship,” he said, “but it also has resonance and value to the wider community.”

For more on the Blueprint Houston event, go to http://www.blueprinthouston.org.

For tickets and information to the AVANCE-Houston event, contact Sonia Garcia at 713-812-0033, ext. 147, or soniagarcia@avancehouston.org.