Rhodes College Professor to be W&L's Constitution Day Speaker
Michael Nelson, professor of political science at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., will be Washington and Lee University’s Constitutional Day speaker this year.
His talk, titled “The Constitution and the Race for the Presidency,” will be held on Monday, Sept. 17, at 5:30 p.m. in the Stackhouse Theater in the University Commons. The event is free and open to the public.
Nelson is the Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes and also a nonresident senior fellow at Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.
Nelson has published 25 books on the presidency, elections, the bureaucracy, public policy and liberal education. He also has written nearly 200 articles on a wide range of political, religious, literary and cultural topics, more than 50 of which have been reprinted in books of political science, history, sociology, sports, music and English composition.
Included in these publications are The President’s Words: Speeches and Speechwriting in the Modern White House, co-editor, (2010); Debating the Presidency: Conflicting Perspectives on the American Executive, co-editor, (2006); The American Presidency: Origins and Development, co-author, (5th ed., 2008); and The Elections of 2008, editor (2010).
Nelson was honored by the Southern Political Science Association with the V.O. Key Award for Outstanding Book on Southern Politics Published in Previous Year for How the South Joined the Gambling Nation: The Politics of State Policy Innovation (2009). He also won the Benjamin Franklin Award in the category of history, politics and philosophy for The American Presidency: Origins and Development, 1776-1990 (1991), among other awards.
Nelson received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University.
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