George Sumner Bridges

George Sumner Bridges (born September 16, 1950) is an American sociologist and the President of The Evergreen State College. He has served in this role since October 1, 2015.

A native of Seattle, Washington, Bridges earned his B.A. degree from the University of Washington, and a M.A. in criminology and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.

While completing his doctoral work, he served 5 years as a social scientist in the U.S. Department of Justice in the staff office of the United States Attorney General (over the Ford, Carter and Reagan Administrations). One of his roles was Assistant Administrator of the Federal Justice Research Program, conducting, designing and funding research on federal legal policy.

In 1981, Bridges accepted his first academic appointment in sociology at Case Western Reserve University. In 1982, he moved to his alma mater, the University of Washington, with an appointment in the department of sociology. At UW, he rose to the rank of professor and Associate Dean and Associate Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education. In 2000, he was appointed Dean and Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education.

Bridges’ scholarly work has examined crime and its measurement as well as law and the administration of law and justice. He has published articles in leading professional journals and several books on these subjects. He studies the causes of racial disparities in imprisonment, identifying the mechanisms by which perceptual biases of racial and ethnic minorities give rise to disproportionately punitive outcomes for minority defendants in criminal cases. These studies of his prompted changes in the laws of state of Washington and federal legal policies on the administration of juvenile justice.

As Dean and Vice Provost at the University of Washington, he led initiatives to advance innovation in teaching and learning for undergraduate students.

Bridges served as president of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2015. In March 2015, he was named president of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, succeeding Thomas L. "Les" Purce.

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