Meet Barry Glassner

President Barry Glassner became Lewis & Clark’s 24th president in October 2010. Prior to his presidency, Glassner served as Executive Vice Provost and Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. Glassner is the author or co-author of 10 books, including The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, released in 1999 with an updated edition issued in 2010. The book was a national bestseller and was named a “Best Book of the Year” by Knight-Ridder newspapers and by the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Glassner is married to Betsy Amster, a literary agent and president of Betsy Amster Literary Enterprises (pictured above).

Earlier in his career, Glassner led academic departments at Syracuse University and the University of Connecticut.

Among other honors, Glassner has received USC’s highest research award (the Associates Award for Creativity in Research) as well as a Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Recognition Award. He has served as the elected chair of one of the largest sections of the American Sociological Association and as a Fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities.

Glassner’s articles and commentaries have appeared in newspapers including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, and he has published research studies in The American Sociological Review, American Journal of Psychiatry, and other leading journals in the social sciences.

Glassner’s scholarship has been recognized with honors including an “outstanding book of the year” award from Choice magazine and a visiting fellowship at Oxford University.

A journalist and editor for ABC radio news while an undergraduate at Northwestern University, Glassner went on to earn master’s and doctorate degrees from Washington University in St. Louis.