Sociologist recognized for outstanding teaching

KALAMAZOO—A Western Michigan University faculty member has received a statewide teaching award. Dr. Ronald Kramer was presented with the Larry T. Reynolds Award for Outstanding Teaching of Sociology at the annual meeting of the Michigan Sociological Association Saturday, Oct. 27, at Calvin College in Grand Rapids.

The award honors Kramer for more than 30 years of teaching sociology and criminology to both undergraduate and graduate students at WMU. As a surprise, the award was presented to him by one of his former doctoral students, Dr. Elizabeth Bradshaw, who now teaches at Central Michigan University.

Ronald Kramer

Kramer, a WMU faculty member since 1978, is a professor of sociology who co-chairs the Interdisciplinary Humanities Study Group on Climate Change in the University Center for the Humanities. He received the WMU Alumni Association Teaching Excellence Award in 1981.

An active scholar, Kramer focuses his research on corporate and state crime, crime prevention and control strategies, and the sociological history of the sport of baseball. He delivered a keynote address on "Climate Change: A State-Corporate Crime Perspective" at the Sept. 18 conference on Environmental Crime and Its Victims at the University of Delft in the Netherlands.

Kramer, a longtime peace and justice activist, is a founding member of Kalamazoo Nonviolent Opponents of War. He has been on the executive board of the WMU Center for the Study of Ethics in Society since 1985, and he founded WMU's annual Peace and Justice Education Week in 1983.

Also active in community affairs, Kramer helped produce local public access television programs, including "WMU Forum," which ran from 1987 to 1995, and the award-winning "Critical Issues, Alternative Views," which ran from 2001 to 2011.

He earned a doctoral degree in sociology from Ohio State University in 1978.