Boyd RossingProfessor Emerit

I was fortunate to have a 30-year active career with the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Wisconsin Division of Extension from 1978 to 2008. As an Extension specialist I supported community faculty and citizens around the state with projects that entailed community organizing and leadership to address local issues. In one project I fostered leadership development for several key communities of color: Black, Indigenous, Latinx and Asian. In another project I co-lead outreach to Black and Latinx families in South Madison. I was able to bring insights from these outreach projects into my UW–Madison teaching of community leadership courses for undergraduate and graduate students.

In addition to state level work, I engaged in projects internationally, primarily in Thailand and the Philippines. These projects involved consultation regarding community based natural resources management. I also coordinated a study tour by a group of Thai multi-stakeholders to exchange knowledge with tribal partners regarding Indigenous land management in Wisconsin.

The combination of local and international engagement combined with cross-racial work gave me an ever-deepening lens regarding global to local injustice and the challenges of system change. Along the way my commitment, as a faculty member, grew stronger regarding studying systemic issues affecting human and ecological welfare and promoting deep system change. Following retirement, I voluntarily continued my engagement in the families project and also continued my scholarship. A few of my recent publications are listed. As a key engagement project, I served as political education coordinator for the Symbiosis confederal democracy project.

Selected Publications

Rossing, B. (2024). Facing Patriarchic Whiteness in the Commons and Solidarity Economy Movements: Embracing Decolonial Feminism.

Rossing, B. (2023). Unsettling, Rooting, and Shifting: Growing Pains for the Bottom-up Confederal Democracy Movement in North American Racial-Settler Context. Harbinger: A Journal of Social Ecology.

Rossing, B. (2021). A Decolonial, Race-Centered, Case Analysis of Bottomup System Change. 8th International Degrowth Conference in The Hague.

For more publications, see Rossing’s Academia.edu profile.