March 12, 2015
Jane Collins, a professor of community & environmental sociology and gender and women’s studies, and a faculty affiliate of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, has been chosen for a prestigious Hilldale Award, an annual recognition for University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty members that dates back to 1987.
The recipients, one each from the four faculty divisions (biological sciences, social sciences, physical sciences, and arts and humanities) will be honored at the April 6 meeting of the Faculty Senate. Collins represents the social sciences division.
The award recognizes scholarly contributions in teaching, research and service and comes with a $7,500 prize.
“Jane is a gifted and creative thinker, and an innovative, highly productive, internationally recognized scholar,” write community and environmental sociology Chair Jess Gilbert and gender and women’s studies Chair Judith Houck in their joint nomination letter.
Throughout her career — which includes more than two decades at UW-Madison — the economic and cultural sociologist has made substantial contributions to our understanding of labor processes and globalization, labor and global commodity chains, shifting frameworks for assessing economic value, and global cultural studies, focusing primarily on women’s work. It’s taken her from arid agricultural fields in Brazil to coffee farms on the eastern slopes of the Andes to apparel factories in Mexico and the U.S. and to neighborhoods in Milwaukee and Racine.
Collins offers a popular graduate seminar that has inspired more than two dozen dissertations. She has mentored 22 graduate students and served on more than 100 thesis committees across 20 university departments. In addition, Collins has served on innumerable university and professional committees.
View the complete list of this year’s Hilldale Award recipients.