Participating in Washington, D.C.’s Women’s March was more than personal for Dr. Carl Riden. Among the masses of demonstrators, she advocated for the issues of the disadvantaged, an interest stemming from her background.
Growing up in a poor, working class community in southern Alabama, Riden’s eyes opened to the economic, racial and environmental struggles leading her to eventually further study it in graduate school.
“We as Americans claim that we want to be a society of equal opportunity but we also all know that we aren’t and so I am passionate about trying to make us less hypocritical like I want us to be the society that we say we want to be,” she said.
Raised in a little town off the gulf coast, she was exposed to racial inequality and injustice. She said her childhood environment, in part, sparked her interest in studying social injustice. She credited one of her high school teachers for encouraging her and helping her through the process of applying to college as she became the first in her family to graduate high school.
“My high school science teacher, Linda France, I mention her every time I get a chance to because she changed my life. She’s the one who suggested that I think about going to college. She’s the one who told me how to apply, who told me there was such a thing as financial aid, who really set me on that path. And then, I had other really fantastic teachers over the years who helped me learn about myself and about subject matter and really convinced me that I was capable,” said Riden.
While Riden earned her undergraduate degree in geology from the University of Alabama, she worked as a lab assistant for professors. Through her work, Riden became more aware of the environmental problems surrounding poor conditions in the communities they studied.
“I am a rural environmental community sociologist by training,” said Riden, who went on to receive her master’s from Virginia Tech’s now-College of Natural Resources and Environment and her doctorate in sociology from Louisiana State.
Now an associate professor of sociology and co-director of the women’s and gender studies minor at Longwood, Riden has taught for 18 years, beginning with four years at Louisiana State University and a private college in town during graduate school. She has worked at Longwood for the past 14 years.
The sociology professor said her favorite thing about Longwood is being able to get to know her students directly. When it came time for Riden to search for a job she could have chosen the research route but believed she would have more of an impact if she went to a small teaching school.
“It’s the kind of college experience I always wanted but I went to a really big state school,” said Riden.
She currently teaches several classes on inequality in addition to foundational sociology courses like Sociological Theory and Introduction to Sociology.
Outside of the sociology department, Riden has participated in the Longwood’s Yellowstone courses for 10 years. The Yellowstone, sponsored by the Cormier Honors College, program fulfills general education English 400 requirement while taking students to learn in the national park’s hands-on environment.
She said, outside of giving her the chance to hike and spend time outdoors, she enjoys the opportunity to take students outside of Virginia to experience and learn about an unfamiliar environment.
“I think it is really important for our students to get out to another part of their country,” said Riden. “If we are going to build citizen leaders, students need to understand that their country is really large and really diverse and that people think about things in really different ways and prioritize things differently depending on where you are.”
