Elijah Anderson, an award-winning author and one of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers and cultural theorists, will receive Wartburg College’s annual Graven Award Tuesday, March 31.

He will accept the award and deliver an address during a 7:30 p.m. ceremony in Wartburg Chapel. The public is invited. The ceremony will include music by organist Karen Black and the Wartburg Choir under the direction of Lee Nelson.

The Graven Award, now in its 26^th year, honors one “whose life is nurtured and guided by a strong sense of Christian calling and who is making a significant contribution to community, church and society.” It is named for Judge Henry N. and Helen T. Graven of Greene.

“Professor Anderson’s career as a sociologist and ethnographer has been marked by his commitment to strengthen the ties between diverse groups of people so that we can grow stronger communities and a more respectful nation,” said the Rev. Ramona Bouzard, dean of the chapel and Moehlmann Chaplaincy Chair. 

Anderson holds the William K. Lanman Jr. Professorship in Sociology at Yale University, where he teaches and directs the Urban Ethnography Project. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Indiana University, master’s from the University of Chicago and doctorate from Northwestern University.

He has written and edited numerous books, chapters, articles and scholarly reports on race in American cities, including “Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life in the Inner City” and “The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life.”

In 2013 he earned the prestigious Cox-Johnson-Frazier Award of the American Sociological Association. He’s also served on the board of directors for the American Academy of Political and Social Science, as vice president of the American Sociological Association and as a consultant for the White House, United States Congress, National Academy of Science and National Science Foundation.