Robert Kleidman - Recording Secretary

Robert Kleidman is Associate Professor of Sociology at Cleveland State University. His research and service center on ‘public sociology,’ developing intellectual and institutional relationships between academia and organizing. His major areas of interest are the study of social movements and community organizing, and secondary areas including urban sociology. His initial interest in public sociology came as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he became a leader in the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, serving on local, state, and national boards of directors. He wrote his Ph.D, dissertation on the Freeze and earlier peace campaigns, identifying common themes important to organizers. Building on this work, he authored Organizing for Peace: Neutrality, the Test Ban, and the Freeze. (1993, Syracuse University Press)

Since joining the faculty at Cleveland State University, he has moved his focus to community organizing, serving as a core team leader and board member of a regional community organizing group. Since 2009, he has been working closely with organizers for Building ONE America, an emerging national network of statewide and metropolitan organizations, to create a powerful group of local elected officials and other community leaders in established suburbs in Ohio. He has published articles about community organizing and public sociology. Before receiving his Ph.D. from Wisconsin, Dr. Kleidman received an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a Master’s degree from the University of California Berkeley.