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Jim Socknat
LAS Dean's Advisory Council
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World Bank, retired
Jim Socknat was born (1940) and went to grade school and high school
in Sioux City, Iowa. After receiving his B.S. in Government from Iowa
State University in 1961, he went to Washington, D.C., where he worked
for the U. S. Department of Labor (Social Science Research Analyst,
Management Intern, and Economist) and earned his J.D. from Georgetown
University Law Center. In 1965 he moved to Des Moines to serve as the
Deputy Director of Governor Harold Hughes' Iowa State Manpower Development
Council. He also passed the bar exam and was admitted to practice in
Iowa. One of his labor economics professors was beginning a sabbatical
leave and Jim accepted a visiting assistant professorship in labor economics
for 1967/68–1968/69.
The Ford Foundation recruited Jim as a labor force and education specialist,
and he was a resident advisor to Governments in the Middle East from
1969–75: Jordan Development Board in Amman, 1969-70; Beirut, Lebanon
Regional Office of Ford Foundation, 1970-71; Jordan National Planning
Council, Amman, 1971-73; and Bahrain Ministries of Finance and Labor,
Manama, 1973-75. During the academic year 1975/76, he was adjunct associate
professor of economics at the University of Utah, where he taught a
graduate seminar on labor and development. He was affiliated there with
the University's Middle East Center and the Human Resources Development
Institute.
In September 1976 the World Bank recruited him to assist in the design
and delivery of a reimbursable technical assistance program for the
oil producing Gulf Sates of the Middle East. He transferred to the Education
Lending Division assisting the borrowing (poorer) Middle East countries
in 1982, and was Principal Economist in the Division. In 1987, he was
appointed Education Division Chief for the Sub-Saharan Africa Region's
Technical Department. .A principal focus of his work in the Sub-Saharan
Africa Region was organization of the Donors to African Education, the
objective of which was to further cooperation among the donors (about
50 with programs of significant size) and between donors and Ministers
of Education to optimize the impact of international assistance on Africa's
education systems. In 1991 he became Chief of the South and East Asia
Region Technical Department's Human Development. Social Development
and Institutional Development Division. This covered education, health,
social protection, public sector management, and the work of non-economist
social scientists on involuntary resettlement, indigenous peoples, gender,
and participatory processes. His final assignment in the Bank , from
1997 until his retirement in 2002, was as Manager for Education in the
Europe and Central Asia Region.
Since his retirement from the Bank, he has done quite a bit of consulting
for the Bank. In some cases the focus is mentoring of relatively new
staff; in other cases the task is to serve as the Advisor to Government
in preparing medium-term plans for strengthening quality and coverage
of the country's education system; and in still other cases it is serving
on quality enhancement and quality assurance/audit reviews of projects
and programs.
Jim has been a member of the ISU Political Science Advisory Board since
its establishment in 1991, and has been a member of the Dean of Liberal
Arts and Science Advisory Council since it was established in 1993.
He has served as chair of the Council since 2001.
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 - Jim Socknat
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