Geoffrey and Sue Grant Papers

Born July 13, 1941 in Evanston, Illinois, Geoffrey W. Grant began teaching in South Dakota State University’s Rural Sociology Department in 1977, becoming an Assistant Professor there in 1980.

In 1964, he received his B.S. in Sociology from Carroll College. From the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, he received his M.A in Sociology in 1969 and his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1980.

On June 29, 1964, he married Sue S. Grant; later Sue worked for South Dakota State University. They had one child, Jeremy Grant, born November 12, 1971. In 1985, Jeremy was living in Fairfield, Iowa.

Prior to teaching at SDSU, Dr. Grant was an instructor at University of Nebraska-Lincoln (1968-1970), an Assistant Professor at Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa (1970-1972), and an Instructor at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa (1972-1975).

During his time at SDSU, Dr. Grant’s responsibilities were 100% in teaching, including these areas of interest: social organization, social change, the family, juvenile delinquency, urban sociology, and sociology of work.

He made at least three extensive trips to China. First in 1979, as a member of a delegation of scholars, researchers and writers assembled by the Eisenhower Foundation for the Prevention of Violence, he was a guest of the Chinese Ministry of Justice for five weeks, touring criminal justice facilities and meeting with Judges, lawyers, etc., in five major Chinese cities.

The second trip in 1987, again with the Eisenhower Foundation, they visited five Chinese cities and met with criminal justice professional, except in Lhasa, Tibet, where they spent five days but with no professional meetings.

In the spring of 2001, Professor Grant was the SDSU faculty exchange professor to Yunnan Normal University in Kunming, China, the “City of Eternal Spring.” He taught two classes of junior composition and one senior class in tourism for the English Department. His wife, Sue Grant, taught three classes of English in a neighboring campus of YNU. The semester lasted from February to mid-July.

In 2003, as project of the Brookings Human Rights Committee, Dr. Grant conducted and reported on the “Brookings Human Rights Committee Survey of Discrimination, 2003,” which was to serve as a baseline for measuring trends, change, etc.