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Good mentors are more than just seasoned career professionals willing to share their knowledge. Good mentors invest a part of themselves in a student or mentee to inspire intellectual growth and performance, creativity, and character.
Dr. William (Bill) R. Freudenburg was a University of California - Santa Barbara professor, renowned environmental sociologist, and dissertation advisor to SESYNC Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Mary B. Collins. Under Freudenburg’s mentorship, Collins studied the sociopolitical factors and social problems that influence the creation of ecological harm and environmental injustice. Freudenburg passed away in 2010 while Collins was still in pursuit of her degree, but their time together directly framed Collins’ current research on the double disproportionality concept—i.e., how certain groups disproportionately create a majority of environmental harm that in turn disproportionately impacts other groups, often distinguishable by race or class.
“I went to Santa Barbara specifically to work with Bill,” says Collins. “I didn’t know him outside of his writing, but was pleasantly surprised to find that he was as cool as he was smart. His door was always open, even through the end of his illness—he was incredibly generous with his time, and completely devoted to his scholarship.”
At UC Santa Barbara, Freudenburg and Collins focused part of their research on how public–private partnerships are transformed by the advancement of technologies. A resultant article, “Temporal Myopia: A Case of Promising New Technologies, the Federal Government, and Inherent Conflicts of Interest,” was recently published in Volume 21 of Research in Social Problems and Public Policy: William R. Freudenburg, A Life in Social Research.
The volume is a Gedenkschrift, or memorial publication, that commemorates Freudenburg’s impacts to both the field of sociology and to the scholarship of those he worked with and influenced. Contributors include both colleagues and students; articles include personal reminiscences, research that reflects on and builds upon Freudenburg’s own work, and articles—like Collins’—that were co-developed with Freudenburg.
“Temporal Myopia” looks at the complications that may arise as the federal government and technologies co-evolve (from promoter to regulator and from emergent to established, respectively). Using the nuclear and nanotechnology industries as case studies, the article suggests that the federal government may create conflicts of interest by regulating the very technological industries it has financed. Freudenburg and Collins conclude by citing a need for additional research into how the federal government can balance its financial interests in a technology’s success with its responsibility to protect the public’s safety and investment, so as to “preserve both government credibility and public trust before it is too late.”
To Collins, the article’s significance is two-fold. “Certainly, the subject matter is important,” she says. “But for me, its genuine value is in paying tribute to Bill’s legacy.”
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