• Richard L. Wood, professor of Sociology, most recently served as interim provost at UNM and previously as president of the Faculty Senate, co-chair of the Committee on Governance, chairperson of the Department of Sociology, director of the Religious Studies Program, special advisor for strategic initiatives in the Office of the Provost, and in various other committee roles at the college and university level.
  • Wood serves as co-editor of a book series, Cambridge Studies of Social Theory, Religion, and Politics at Cambridge University Press, and has helped lead major nationally funded research projects on religion and democracy in the United States, Central America, and the Middle East. He has served on a variety of community service boards at the local and national levels.
  • Research focuses on the cultural and institutional underpinnings of democracy, especially those rooted in faith communities, religion, social movements, global/transnational sociology, comparative sociology, community organizing, comparative civil societies (United States and Latin America) and democratic theory.
  • Professor and former chair in the Department of Sociology
  • Founding director of the Southwest Institute on Religion, Culture, and Society
  • Former special advisor (strategic initiatives) to the UNM Provost
  • Wood's book on community organizing in poor urban settings, Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America (University of Chicago Press 2002), was named outstanding book in the sociology of religion by the American Sociological Association in 2003
  • Ph.D. from UC-Berkeley 1995

Additional Areas of interest
His book, A Shared Future: Ethical Democracy and Multiculturalism, using a contemporary national social movement to analyze the constructive tension between multiculturalist and universalist democratic traditions is under review. Also completing Faith and the Fire of Public Life, which analyzes the impact of civic engagement on faith communities.

Wood serves as co-editor of a book series, Cambridge Studies of Social Theory, Religion, and Politics at Cambridge University Press, and has led major nationally funded research projects on religion and democracy in the United States, Central America, and the Middle East. He has served as president of the UNM Faculty Senate; co-chair of the UNM Committee on Governance; director of the UNM Religious Studies Program; and has held a variety of leadership roles in national professional organizations.

Contact
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