Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Rotunda Online
The Rotunda
Saturday, July 12, 2025

Professor Spotlight: Associate Professor of Sociology Dr. Carl Riden

Born in the town of Grand Bay, Ala., not far from Bayou La Batre, Dr. Carl Riden has been an associate professor at Longwood University for the past eight years and is co-director to the Women's and Gender Studies (WGS) Program.

She comes from a rather untraditional background for a professor of sociology. Riden said, "My undergraduate degree is in geology and I did marine geology research, sedimentary research, from high school onward. [This is] work that would be called oceanography by most people. I did some high school research and I worked in some labs throughout my undergraduate [education] and then, around my junior year, of undergrad school, I worked on some environmental impact projects in rural Alabama where I'm from . I was at the University of Alabama at the time and I started observing the social costs of the kind of environmental problems that we were working on in the lab and I started asking some questions like 'Why were people working in industries they knew polluting their own water or were suspected to be dangerous for their health and the health of their children.'"

She continued, "So, I did some self-reflection and realized that I was more interested in the human side of things than I was in the physical aspects of environmental science...and I ran across sociology. So I took a class in undergraduate school in sociology from a man who was an environmental sociologist, and it was the first I'd ever there was such a thing."

After wandering into a newfound love of sociology, Riden decided to finish her undergraduate degree in geology after having spent so much time in the major. Her graduate education was determined by trying to find a crossover by which Dr. Riden could find her way to the subject of interest. After asking around, Riden was suggested to pursue a Masters in what is currently called Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and was admitted to the then-Virginia Tech College of Forestry. Her thesis was on the "impact of community and place attachment on people's attitudes toward tourism development in the Mt. Rogers National Recreation area." She was primarily interested in how a government agency would convince residents to agree to develop for recreational purposes. This program brought her to study with numerous sociologists though she was not currently one herself. Among these researchers were rural sociologists Cornelia Flora and Jan Flora.

The contact with rural and environmental sociology pushed her to seek her PhD in such a program. She subsequently ended up at Louisiana State University (LSU). Riden said "it was like going back to my home region." Once more on the Gulf coast, Riden worked with sociologists investigating small fishing communities. There, her opinion was respected due to an understanding of both social and scientific factors. As her research drew on, she found the ethnic composition of her subject community was largely Croatian, relatively affluent, and college-educated. Engaging in what was usually family business, these men maintained their ethnic community by the small area in which many of them farmed their oysters. The jobs would largely continue among even college educated men for a dislike of desk work. However, Riden also found that her subjects' younger generations were being actively dissuaded from the oyster beds due to economic realities.

Her career in teaching began around the same time at LSU with classes of 200-300 students but she never knew any of them. After completely her PhD, she decided to come to Longwood for reasons of size, a welcome return to Virginia, and the idea of creating involved students. She likewise believes in General Education and sociology for non-majors. In conjunction with these beliefs of widespread education, Riden uses the theme of personal empowerment and being an active citizen. She said she understood the reality of everyone having different opportunities but she rejects the idea that one is stuck in a position or a class. Education, she said, is important to doing that and, much in the vein of sociology, "studying different points of view makes us better citizens."

Riden listed her influences as her high school teacher Linda France, who taught in a small Alabama school, but had students at the international science fair almost every year. France also encouraged her to go to college and characterized the way she teaches by assisting students. As far as politics are concerned, Riden admires feminists Alice Paul, who worked for the vote and equal rights for women, and Margaret Thayer. These models influence the idea that people, both inside and outside the system, are necessary for change to take place.

Riden ended saying she really loved teaching at LU. Facing criticism from past colleagues and professors for her choice, she commented on a positive energy that seems to be involved at Longwood and the fact that she can enjoy her job as opposed to many people she knows.

Trending