Bowling Green, Ky. - Social scientists from Kentucky and Tennessee will visit Western Kentucky University this weekend for the 41st Annual Meeting of the Anthropologists and Sociologists of Kentucky (ASK).

The conference includes 11 paper sessions, two panel presentations, two film screenings and a keynote address. The paper sessions are on various topics, such as Religion, Distress and Recovery, Economy and Work, Youth and Tourism.

The meeting begins at 3 p.m. Friday and continues all day Saturday at Grise Hall.

At 9:30 a.m. Saturday, the Kentucky Workgroup on Civic Literacy and Education will present the findings of its recent report, Rediscovering Democracy. The group is chaired by Secretary of State Trey Grayson and includes key members of his administrative staff, representatives of the Department of Education, the Administrative Office of the Courts and Northern Kentucky University.

The keynote address at 4:45 p.m. Saturday will be presented by Lionel J. “Bo” Beaulieu, director of the Southern Rural Development Center, one of four USDA-sponsored regional development centers.

Dr. Beaulieu’s professional efforts have been devoted to human and social capital resource issues in the rural United States and the South; the educational success of rural youth; and the expansion of civic engagement in rural areas. During his tenure at the SRDC, Dr. Beaulieu has initiated rural development policy briefs that have helped bring focus to challenges facing rural areas of the South in the years ahead.

The SRDC is engaged in a Ford Foundation-supported initiative that is giving focus to the expanded role of rural community colleges in addressing the educational and economic development needs of local people and places. The SRDC is providing leadership to a national effort to strengthen the entrepreneurship and e-commerce efforts among small businesses in rural America. Dr. Beaulieu was president of the Rural Sociological Society in 2004.

The ASK meeting, which is being held at WKU for the third time, is hosted by the Sociology Department and the Anthropology program.

Dr. Douglas Smith, an associate professor of sociology at WKU, is the 2004-05 ASK president. More information on the meeting is available on his webpage at http://www.wku.edu/~douglas.smith/

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact Douglas Smith at (270) 745-2152.