Manuel Pastor, professor of sociology and American studies at USC, will be the speaker at CSUN’s final spring 2014 Dialogues with the Provost lecture, titled The Next California: Demographic Shifts, Economic Change and Implications for Higher Education.

The lecture will be held from 9 a.m.-11 a.m. on April 21 in Cypress Hall 158, and will include introductory comments by President Dianne Harrison and Provost Harry Hellenbrand.

Pastor, who received his PhD in economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is the director of the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE), and co-director of USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). As an immigration reform advocate he has written many books, the most recent being “Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions.”

Pastor specializes in environmental justice, urban integration, inclusion and socioeconomic issues facing disenfranchised lower-income communities nationwide.

Prior to his position at USC, Pastor was the founding director of University of California, Santa Cruz Center for Justice, Tolerance and Community.