Each year, the Joseph R. Gladden Jr. Public Lecture Award is granted to an exceptional faculty member at Agnes Scott. On September 19th, Augustus “Gus” Bonner Cochran III will give this year’s Gladden Lecture to both the Agnes Community and the greater public. I sat down with Dr. Cochran to learn more about this honor, his career, and how he was preparing for the big day.
Before Dr. Cochran was Agnes Scott’s Adeline A. Loridans Professor of Political Science, he was living in the small college town of Athens, Georgia. After graduating from Athens High School, Cochran moved to North Carolina to pursue a liberal arts education at Davidson College, which at the time was an all men’s school. Cochran had always intended to go to law school, but he told me that a liberal arts education encouraged him to further his pursuit of academia. At Indiana University, Cochran received his masters in Political Science before transferring to UNC Chapel Hill to finish out his Ph.D. with a focus in American politics in the South. In 1973, Dr. Cochran came to teach at Agnes Scott, but he did not forget his dream of becoming a lawyer. Working full time at Agnes, Dr. Cochran attended night school at Georgia State University and graduated second in his law school class. This semester he is teaching “Constitutional Law” and “Rights at Work,” both classes heavily saturated in U.S. law.
Dr. Cochran’s lecture next week is titled “You’re Hired! But Are You An Employee?” It will address how the definition of “employee” is changing, how the broader social context of neoliberal globalization is shaping these changes, and why these developments matter, both for workers and for our democracy. The lecture has been advertised in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and will be held in the “Frannie” (Francis Graves Auditorium) at 5 p.m. on September 19th.
Concluding our interview, I ask Dr. Cochran if he had any notable suggested readings:
- New York Times “A New Type of Labor Law for a New Type of Worker” by William Forbath
- “WHEN THE MARKET WAS “LEFT” by Elizabeth Anderson
I encourage everyone to attend the lecture to learn more about your rights as an employee. We are all working towards future employment (#Not Broke Life), and an insight into your role as an employee could prove valuable in the future.