Rabel J. Burdge Is Presently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology and Huxley

Rabel J. Burdge is presently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Sociology and Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University in Bellingham, where he taught courses on environmental sociology and social impact assessment from 1996-2004. . He is a Professor Emeritus from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he held tenure appointments from 1976 to 1996 in the Institute for Environmental Studies and the Departments of Agricultural Economics (Rural Sociology), Leisure Studies (Parks and Recreation) and Urban and Regional Planning. . Educated at Penn State (Ph.D.-1965) and Ohio State Universities (B.S.-1959 and M.S.-1961), Burdge has also served on the faculties of the University of Kentucky (Lexington), 1968-1976; and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, 1965-68 (active military duty with final rank of Captain). . Since 1986 he has been an Honorary Professor in the School of Australian Environmental Studies, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia where he received the visiting scholar award. In 1984 he was a Resident Professor, Department of Western Sociology, University of Wageningen, the Agricultural University of The Netherlands. Burdge spent the spring term of 2002 as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Planning and Landscape and the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Centre, University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. . In 2003, Burdge edited a double issue of the international journal, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, Volume 21 (2&3) titled, “The Practice of Social Impact Assessment” and completed the 3rd edition of his two SIA textbooks: The Concepts, Process and Methods of Social impact Assessment and A Community Guide to Social Impact Assessment, both published in 2004 by the Social Ecology Press of Middleton, Wisconsin. . He has written over 200 scholarly articles and papers on social change in rural communities, natural resource and environmental issues, needs assessment surveys, the use of public involvement in the resource decision making process, the social and economic impacts of development, the sitting of hazardous and conventional waste facilities as well as natural resource recreation management. . In addition to the above books, Burdge is author of Coping with Change: an Interdisciplinary Assessment of the Lake Shelbyville Reservoir, and co-author of Social Change in Rural Societies: A Rural Sociology Textbook, 3rd Edition. He is former editor of the Journal of Leisure Research and founding co-editor of both Leisure Sciences: an Interdisciplinary Journal and Society and Natural Resources: an International Journal. . From 1994-2000 Burdge was Executive Director and Treasurer of the Rural Sociological Society (RSS) and Editor of The Rural Sociologist. He was the 1988 recipient of the RSS Natural Resources Research Award for contributions to the sociology of natural resources. In August of 1996, he was named Distinguished Rural Sociologist, the highest honor given by the Rural Sociological Society. . In 1990 he was elected the President of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) and in 1994 received from IAIA the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Award for outstanding contributions to the field of impact assessment. He gave the keynote address for the 26th annual meeting (June, 2007) of the International Association for Impact Assessment in Seoul, Korea and it was later published as Rabel J Burdge, “The Focus of Impact Assessment (And IAIA) Must Now Shift to Global Climate Change!!” Environmental Impact assessment Review, 28 (8 November, 2008) pp. 618-622. . Recent consultancies include: 2001--preparation of the Social Impact Assessment manual for the Bureau of Reclamation, US Department of Interior; 2002--international expert for UNEP-Malaysia on the preparation of SIA guidelines; and 2003--preparation of Principles and Guidelines for Social Impact Assessment for the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA). . Annually, Burdge gives training courses on social impact assessment for such professional organizations as the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) and the International Association for Society and Natural Resources (IASNR) where he received the Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Rural Sociological Society (RSS). He has also given training courses on social impact assessment for the following private sector companies and organizations: Worley-Parsons, Calgary, Alberta; Statoil (National Oil Company of Norway); The Cree Nation of Northern Quebec, Montreal, Quebec and Pemex (National Oil Company of Mexico) in Villahermosa, Mexico; Magellan Corporate Strategies of Calgary, Alberta; and the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C. . Recent social impact assessment (SIA) projects include; the assessment of the building of housing for low-income Hispanic farm workers in a lower middle class area; the sitting of a large deep water port facility on Native America land; a proposal to build a multiple-housing recreation facility inside a present urban area on 85 acres of pristine forested land and the baseline study for a proposed diamond mine in Aboriginal Territory of the Canadian Northwest Territory. . He recently completed two four year terms (2004-2010) as a member of the Whatcom County (State of Washington) Planning Commission.

. Burdge may be reached at +1-360-676-9892 or e-mail [email protected].