About Dean Leslie Hossfeld

Dean Hossfeld serves as the chief academic, fiscal and administrative officer for the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences that includes seven departments, 15 bachelor’s programs, 12 concentrations, 13 master’s programs, 9 doctoral programs, nine research centers and institutes, and a research enterprise with more than $84 million in grant and contract awards, $25 million in endowments, and an operating budget of over $70 million. She guides the work of more than 400 faculty, 36 post docs, and 150 staff who serve over 4,800 students. Dr. Hossfeld is trained in rural sociology from North Carolina State University with experience examining rural poverty and economic restructuring. Her research expertise includes community and economic development, agrarianism, food and nutrition security, and rural health access. She has delivered more than 150 research presentations at national and international conferences and published over 80 peer-reviewed scholarly works and over $10 million in research grants and contracts. She has made two presentations to the U.S. Congress and one to the North Carolina legislature on job loss and rural economic decline. Dean Hossfeld has served the discipline in national roles as co-chair of the American Sociological Association Task Force on Public Sociology, the 78th president of the Southern Sociological Society, chair of the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Practice and Public Sociology, Executive Board member of the Mississippi Food Policy Council, and a member of the Executive Council of the North Carolina Sociological Association (NCSA), which awarded her a lifetime achievement award in February 2019. Dr. Hossfeld has also served as co-chair of the USDA SERA-47 multi-state initiative, Strengthening the Southern Region Extension and Research System to Support Local and Regional Food Needs and Priorities in 13 states in the southern region. Prior to joining Clemson, Dean Hossfeld was head of the Department of Sociology, Criminology and Social Work at Mississippi State University and Social Science Research Center Fellow from 2015-2018, and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington from 2012-2015.She has developed economic recovery projects for rural North Carolina counties and food sovereignty projects in the Mississippi Delta using health as an economic development strategy. Dr. Hossfeld has helped secure over $8 million in external grants and contracts to support the Building Healthy Communities and Clemson Rural Health initiatives at Clemson University. In 2023, she received the South Carolina Sociological Association Excellence in Scholarship Award, and in 2024, the Clemson University Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Award (URSAAA) for annual expenditures exceeding $1 million.