Grant, Geoffrey W.

Geoffrey W. Grant was born July 13, 1941, in Evanston, Illinois. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Sociology from Carroll College in 1964 and completed a Master of Arts in Sociology in 1969 and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1980 at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Prior to joining South Dakota State University, he served as an instructor at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln from 1968 to 1970, as an assistant professor at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, from 1970 to 1972, and as an instructor at Iowa State University from 1972 to 1975. Grant began teaching in SDSU’s Rural Sociology Department in 1977 and became an assistant professor in 1980. His responsibilities were devoted entirely to teaching, with areas of emphasis including social organization, social change, the family, juvenile delinquency, urban sociology, and the sociology of work.

Grant traveled to China on multiple occasions. In 1979, he participated in a five-week visit as a member of a delegation assembled by the Eisenhower Foundation for the Prevention of Violence, touring criminal justice facilities and meeting with legal professionals in five major cities as a guest of the Chinese Ministry of Justice. He returned in 1987 with a similar delegation, visiting five cities and spending time in Lhasa, Tibet. In the spring of 2001, he served as the SDSU faculty exchange professor to Yunnan Normal University in Kunming, China, where he taught composition and tourism courses; his wife, Sue Grant, also taught English during the semester. In 2003, he conducted and reported on the Brookings Human Rights Committee Survey of Discrimination as a project of the Brookings Human Rights Committee.

Field of Activity: Sociology, Rural
Occupation: University and college faculty members, Sociology teachers; College teachers
Associated Groups: University of Nebraska--Lincoln; Parsons College (Fairfield, Iowa); Iowa State University; South Dakota State University