J. John Palen, Professor Emeritus (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1965)

Bird House, room 208
Tel.: (804) 828-6826
E-mail: jpalen@saturn.vcu.edu

Specialty Areas

Urban sociology, demography, human ecology

Biographical Sketch

J. John Palen received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame in 1961, and his M.S.(1963) and Ph.D. (1967) from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He was at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1969 to 1980 where he went from assistant to full professor. He has been a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University since 1980. From 1986 to 1992 he chaired the department of sociology and anthropology.

Professor Palen is author of a dozen books and over thirty refereed professional articles and book chapters. His teaching and research focuses on questions of urban change such as gentrification and suburbanization. He also has done research on urban change in Southeast Asia, and recently has taught for the Honors Program. Professor Palen's most recent books are Social Problems for the Twenty-First Century (McGraw-Hill, 2002), The Suburbs (McGraw-Hill, 1995), and The Urban World, (McGraw-Hill, 1997). The latter volume is in its fifth edition and for many years has been the leading urban text in the nation.

In addition to his academic appointments Dr. Palen has worked as a demographer for the United Nations at the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa. He did his military service as a captain occupying a colonels slot on the faculty of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.. He also served on the Army General Staff. Professor Palen was Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore in 1983, and in 1992 was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at the Institute of Sociology, Tunghai University, Taiwan. To support his various urban and demographic studies Dr. Palen has received research grants from among others; the Ford Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Population Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. In 1994 Dr. Palen received the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences Distinguished Scholar Award. Dr. Palen retired and was appointed Professor Emeritus in 2002.