Sacramento State Economics Professor John F. Henry was honored Nov. 1 in the University Ballroom at the 26th annual John C. Livingston Faculty Lecture.

The lecture, named for the late John C. Livingston, a Sac State professor from 1959 to 1982, is awarded each year to a faculty member who shows dedication to the University and its students, according to the Sac State Public Affairs Office.

Henry?s lecture, titled “Property and the Limits to Democracy,” examined famous democratic battles of the past and how they shaped current society.

Management Professor Art Jensen, who serves on the Livingston Lecture Committee, presented Henry with this year?s award. He said Henry was chosen to give the lecture for his contributions to students and the Economics Department.

“John represents what we as faculty value and honor,” Jensen said.

President Donald Gerth also spoke at the ceremony. He stressed the importance of having an award that recognizes great professors and their contributions to Sac State.

The award ceremony assembled a diverse group of audience members, including Henry?s current students, co-workers, family and other well-known members of the community. More than 150 people were on hand for the lecture.

Henry accepted the award and thanked his co-workers and students for making him a better teacher.

“Most honors are false,” Henry said. “There is an awful lot of fraudulent activity around honors, but this isn?t one of them.”Before beginning his lecture, Henry spoke of the important relationship between students and professors.

“Good students will push you, and demand from you intellectual demands that they truly want to understand,” Henry said.

In his lecture, Henry used historical examples to show how views on democracy and property ownership have been shaped. He spoke about John Brown and his battle for democracy and against slavery, as well as Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen and John Maynard Keyes, and their common position on the nature of capitalist property and the economic organization it fosters.

Henry received his Ph.D. from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and has been a professor at Sac State since 1970. He has also received the Outstanding Teaching Award for the College of Social Sciences and Interdisciplinary Studies.

The award received its name in 1986, after Livingston, who presented the first “Distinguished Faculty Convocation Address” in 1959. Livingston was remembered and recognized for his leadership in the development of the character of “collegial governance” in the California State University.

The annual convocation provides the opportunity for the campus community to come together and share a university, Jensen said.

Henry is currently a visiting professor at the University of Missouri Center for Full Employment and Stability, located in the University?s Economics Department. He is also working on a book, which he hopes to publish in a couple of years.

He will return to the Sac State campus next year, where he will continue teaching courses in research on property issues.