History and Political Science Faculty 2011-12

Pictured above, from left to right:

• Dr. Carol Willcox Melton
• Dr. Stephen Taylor (chair)
• Dr. Matthew Jennings
• Dr. Andrew Manis
• Dr. Robert Burnham
• Dr. Naomi Robertson
• Dr. James D. Decker
• Dr. Julie Lester
• Dr. Larry Israel
• Dr. Matthew A. Zimmerman
• Dr. Charlotte Miller (not pictured)

Dr. Robert Burnham

Professor of History

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 326

Email:

Dr. Robert Burnham has emerged as an eminent urban historian and a key member of the local community as well. Dr. Burnham has maintained an excellent balance among teaching, scholarship, and service obligations. As the faculty member most associated with Macon State College's honors courses in history, Dr. Burnham has helped shape the minds of many of our brightest students, teaching them not only the ''what'' and ''when'' of history but also the methods historians use. Dr. Burnham's involvement with the Douglass Theatre in Macon has helped revive that landmark's role in community education and entertainment, and Dr. Burnham is largely responsible for the tremendous success of the CollegeTown film series held at the Douglass. Dr. Burnham's activities also include involvement with the Macon Film Guild and MSC's Artists and Lecturers Committee, giving him the opportunity to bring the academic world and the local community closer together.

Dr. James D. Decker

Professor of Political Science

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 319

Email:

Dr. James D. Decker holds a Ph.D. from Florida State University in American Politics and has taught at Macon State since 1991. His dissertation,” Organized Interest Activity at the State Level: A Search for an Activity Based Typology Within the Florida State Political Environment,” sought to quantify  political activities used by subnational organized interests. Dr. Decker has taught in the University System of Georgia’s European Council Study Abroad Programs in London, England on three occasions and once in Paris, France. He was a participant in a University System of Georgia’s International Faculty Development Seminar to South Africa, and was chosen a Fulbright-Hays Scholar to the People’s Republic of China in 1997.  His research interests include interest groups, political behavior, political parties, and sexual orientation political issues. He coauthored the chapter, “The Unprotected: The Sexual Harassment of Lesbians and Gays,” in Louis Diamant and Jo Ann Lee, eds., The Psychology of Sex, Gender, and Jobs (Praeger, 2001).

Dr. Larry Israel

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 324

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/larry.israel (under construction)

Dr. Larry Israel joined the history department at Macon State College in fall 2008, and teaches both World History and upper-level courses in East Asian history.  He received his Ph.D. in Chinese History from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.  His doctoral dissertation, entitled “On the Margins of the Grand Unity: Empire, Violence, and Ethnicity in the Virtue Ethics and Political Practice of Wang Yangming (1472-1529),” examines the relationship between, on the one hand, the religious thought and political philosophy of this most famous of Ming Confucian philosophers and, on the other, his official policies and military campaigns as an important statesmen in an expanding Chinese empire. Based on his dissertation, Dr. Israel published articles in two important journals in the East Asian field, Ming Studies and Late Imperial China.  Currently, while devoting his energy to developing courses on World History, China, Japan, and Vietnam, Dr. Israel is also in the process of revising his dissertation for publication as a monograph. Dr. Israel is very excited about teaching at Macon State, hopes to convey this excitement over history to his students, and looks forward to getting to know them as well as receiving their valuable insights and input.

Dr. Matthew Jennings

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 328

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/matt.jennings

Matt came to Macon State College in Fall 2007, having just received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. Before he came to Macon State, Jennings taught at Eastern Illinois University and Illinois State University. Matt’s areas of expertise include early American history, Native American history, and the history of violence. Jennings's first book, New Worlds of Violence, will be published in summer 2011 by the University of Tennessee Press. He has contributed to several edited volumes, including Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone, edited by Robbie Ethridge and Sheri Marie Shuck-Hall; Crisis and Conflict in the Early Carolinas, edited by Michelle LeMaster and Bradford J. Wood; and John Brown Remembered, edited by Peggy Russo, Evan Carton, and Spencer Crews. In addition, Matt has contributed numerous articles and chapters in The Encyclopedia of Native American History, Native Peoples of the World, The South Carolina Encyclopedia, Native America: A State-by-State History, and A Multicultural History of the United States. His next book, tentatively titled Making a Native American Monument: Ocmulgee’s First Thousand Years, will focus on the relationship between Native peoples and the Ocmulgee site. Apart from that manuscript, Jennings is working on a new edition of William Bartram’s writings on the Creeks and Cherokees, and a reconsideration of abolitionist John Brown’s ideas concerning violence. Matt teaches both halves of the American history survey, as well as upper division classes in Native American history, African American history, the Atlantic world, colonialism, antebellum America, historical methods and research, and abolitionism. He serves as a judge for National History Day in Georgia, has spoken to Atlanta Public Schools teachers about early Georgia, and works with middle school students in Bibb County on Native American history.

Dr. Julie Lester

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 318

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/julie.lester (under construction)

Dr. Julie A. Lester came to Macon State College in Fall 2007.  She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, in May 2007.  Her dissertation, “The Agrarian Myth as Narrative in Agricultural Policymaking” considered the usage of myths and symbols in the legislative process.  Dr. Lester has taught courses in American politics, policymaking and public administration at Purdue University in West Lafayette and Hammond, Indiana, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana and Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania.  Dr. Lester is continuing to research the policy narratives used in American agricultural policymaking and also has an interest in environmental policy, state politics, interest group politics, civic education and the intersection between American popular and political culture.   

Dr. Andrew Manis

Associate Professor of History

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 327

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/andrew.manis

Dr. Andrew Manis is a nationally recognized, award-winning historian whose research focuses on the role of religion in American life, with particular attention placed on the Civil Rights Movement. Dr. Manis recently received the Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council for his book, A Fire You Can't Put Out. The book, a biography of civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, was also nominated for the Robert F. Kennedy Prize. Dr. Manis is a popular speaker, addressing churches and schools on the role of the church in crusading for social and political justice. Dr. Manis organized an on-campus event at which Rev. Shuttlesworth spoke, drawing record attendance. Dr. Manis has appeared on C-SPAN and the History Channel as well as Fox News. Dr. Manis is also the author of several other books on the intersection of politics, religion and race in American life.

Dr. Manis has recently been selected as a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence. He will spend four months in 2009 teaching and researching at the University of Thessaloniki in Greece.

Dr. Carol Willcox Melton

Associate Professor of History

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 316

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/carol.melton (under construction)

Dr. Carol Willcox Melton has a Ph.D. in military history from Duke University, and is the author of Between War and Peace: Woodrow Wilson and the American Expeditionary Force in Siberia, 1918-1920, which was described by a reviewer in the Journal of American History as ''a fascinating and graphic study of a military expedition that was one of the strangest in American history.'' Southern history is a field of particular interest to Dr. Melton, who served as director of research for the PBS documentary Family Name and has also been a frequent guest on local radio. Dr. Melton has also published two articles: ''The Willcox Iron Works'' in The Encyclopedia of North Carolina History, and ''The Supreme Court and the Federalists -- A Supplement 2001-2006'' in The Kentucky Law Journal, co-authored with her husband Buckner F. Melton, Jr.

Dr. Charlotte Miller

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 325

Email:

Dr. Miller joined the Macon State College faculty in the Fall of 2011.  She received her PhD in History from the University of Iowa.  Her dissertation, “Who are the ‘permanent inhabitants of the state’: citizenship policies and border controls in Tanzania, 1920-1980,” examines how British colonial authorities and post-colonial Tanzanian leaders struggled with African mobility and labels of identity.  Her research interests tend to focus on trans-nationality, state formation, and citizenship.  Currently, she is working on two projects.  One examines smugglers as dissidents in socialist Tanzania and links them to the collapse of the East African Community.  A second project plans to consider the unification of mainland Tanganyika and the islands of Zanzibar in the mid-1960s. 

Dr. Miller also finds teaching to be incredibly rewarding.  Currently, she is teaching surveys of World History and an upper-level course on colonialism.  She eagerly anticipates African History surveys and additional upper-level courses in future semesters.

Dr. Naomi Robertson

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 329

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/naomi.robertson (under construction)

Dr. Naomi Robertson has been a member of the Macon State faculty since 2001. She received a PhD in Public Administration, with a concentration in Environmental Growth Management, from Florida Atlantic University. She’s taught courses in American Government, State and Local Government, Public Policy Analysis, Public Personnel Administration, Introduction to Public Administration, Minority Politics, Public Service Management, and Perspectives on Diversity. Her research includes minority economic development in the cities of Ft. Lauderdale and Pompano Beach, FL, the black church and economic development, and the redevelopment of brownfields in Macon.  She recently co-authored and presented a paper entitled, “Watch out Education, Experience, and the Glass-Ceiling:  Malleability is Taking Over. Is your Lack of Malleability Holding You Back?”  Her current research is in the areas of gentrification and environmental justice. In 2004, Dr Robertson had several articles published in Affirmative Action:  An Encyclopedia, Volumes I and II (Greenwood Press) and recently had articles accepted for publication in the SAGE Reference project, Encyclopedia of Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior.  She is an active member of the Georgia Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the Conference of Minority Public Administrators (COMPA).  Additionally, she’s Advisor to Macon State’s Black Student Unification, which sponsors several cultural, educational, and other extra-curricular activities throughout the year for the school and local community. She is also a Central Georgia Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer, advocating on behalf of abused and/or neglected children.

Dr. Stephen W. Taylor

Associate Professor of History

Chair, Department of History and Political Science

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 315

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/stephen.taylor

Dr. Stephen Taylor has a proven record of scholarly achievement, including the publication of his book, The New South's New Frontier, which one reviewer called ''a concise and provocative economic history.'' Dr. Taylor has presented his research to national and international scholarly audiences, including the Organization of American Historians, the American Studies Association, the American Society for Environmental History, the Appalachian Studies Association, and the Southern Historical Association. His current research focuses on federal environmental policy and the uses of technology in the Great Smoky Mountains. The author of several articles for the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, the South Carolina Encyclopedia, and other reference works, Dr. Taylor also contributed a chapter in Michele Gillespie and Susanna Delfino, eds., Technology, Innovation, and Southern Industrialization: From the Antebellum Era to the Computer Age.

Dr. Taylor appeared in the History Channel documentary "Hillbilly: the Real Story," but he has not neglected local audiences, as his participation in several local forums attests. He has served as the advisor for Macon State College's Intercollegiate Quiz Bowl Team and is now the co-sponsor of the MSC Model United Nations Club.

Dr. Matthew A. Zimmerman

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Charles H. Jones Building, room 317

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/matthew.zimmerman (under construction)

Dr. Matthew A. Zimmerman joined Macon State College in Fall 2007, teaching courses in American and Latin American history. He received his Ph.D. from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2007. His dissertation, “Married to the Faith: Quakers and the Transatlantic Community,” explored the relationships among Quaker meetings through 1780. His areas of interest include early American religious and legal history. He has taught courses in American legal and constitutional history and American sports history at Lehigh University and Muhlenberg College. Dr. Zimmerman’s current research focuses on the development of a marriage doctrine among early American Quakers. He is also currently conducting a study of spousal abuse and abandonment in seventeenth-century America.