History and Political Science Faculty 2009-10

• Dr. Robert Burnham
• Dr. Jeffrey D. Burson
• Dr. James Decker
• Dr. Larry Israel
• Dr. Matthew Jennings
• Dr. Julie Lester
• Dr. Andrew Manis
• Dr. Carol Willcox Melton
• Dr. Naomi Robertson
• Dr. Stephen Taylor (chair)
• Dr. Matthew A. Zimmerman
• Dr. Sue Gillis Leslie (retired)
• Mr. Robert Durand (retired)

Dr. Robert Burnham

Professor of History

Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 207

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/bob.burnham (under construction)

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. Jeffrey D. Burson

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 217

Email:

Webpage: http://facultyweb.maconstate.edu/jeff.burson

Jeffrey D. Burson teaches World History as well as upper level courses in the Middle Ages, Early Modern Europe, France from 1660-1815, and Britain, 1603-1714.  Professor Burson received his Ph.D. from George Washington University in 2006.  Before coming to Macon State (Fall 2007), he taught at Washington College, George Mason University, and Northern Virginia Community College.  This year (2008-2009), he serves as faculty advisor to the Macon State College History Student Association.

Professor Burson has presented papers at a number of national and international conferences. His publications include articles and reviews in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, Intellectual History Review, Church History, Selected Papers of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Scottish Tradition, World History Review, and the online journal Vestnik.  His first book, The Rise and Fall of Theological Enlightenment: Jean-Martin de Prades and Ideological Polarization in Eighteenth-Century France, will be published in 2010 by Notre Dame Press.

Dr. James D. Decker

Professor of Political Science

Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 225

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. George L. (Larry) Israel

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 209

Email:

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

Dr. George L. (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: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 211

Email:

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

Dr. Matthew Jennings came to Macon State College in Fall 2007, having just received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. His dissertation, "This Country Is Worth the Trouble of Going to War to Keep It," examined violence in the North American Southeast before 1740. Dr. Jennings’s areas of expertise include early American history, Native American history, and the history of violence. Dr. Jennings has taught a variety of courses—including courses on race, Native American experience and American constitutionalism—at the University of Illinois, Eastern Illinois University and Illinois State University. Dr. Jennings' first book, New Worlds of Violence: Indians and Empires in the American Southeast, is under contract with the University of Tennessee Press for publication in 2009. Dr. Jennings is also a contributor to Peter Mancall, ed. The Encyclopedia of Native American History, as well as Robbie Ethridge and Sheri Shuck-Hall, eds., Mapping the Shatter Zone: The European Invasion and the Transformation of the Mississippian World. His next book will focus on the relationship between Macon and the Ocmulgee site, and he is interested in forging a bond between Macon State College and the region’s indigenous peoples.

Dr. Julie Lester

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Office: Humanities and Social Science Building, room 209

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: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 231

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

Assistant Professor of History

Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 213

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. Naomi Robertson

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 229

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: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 227

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: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 211

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.

Dr. Sue Gillis Leslie

Associate Professor of History (retired)

Email:

Dr. Sue Gillis Leslie (not pictured) has demonstrated a faithful commitment to quality teaching, administrative expertise, and a high standard of scholarly contribution to the study of local history in her more than twenty year career. In addition to major contributions, teaching conferences, and several years of administrative experience, Dr. Leslie has on several occasions presented her one-woman show, ''An Evening with Anne: The Life of Anne Tracy Johnston through Her Letters.'' This presentation has reached public audiences through the Hay House and was also presented before a Board of Regents audience. Dr. Leslie's scholarly investigations and study have enriched Macon's local history and enhanced Macon State College's relationship with the Middle Georgia community. Dr. Leslie retired in May 2007, and we are honored to be able to build on her legacy.

Mr. Robert Durand

Associate Professor of History (retired)

Office: Humanities and Social Sciences Building, room 207

Email:

We are most proud to observe that Macon State's history department has evolved into a superb company of dedicated teachers, scholars, and public servants. Our department has been responsible for Family Night, the Classic Film Series, the History as Drama series, and the History in Georgia series of regional and state historical projects. The department's longtime coordinator, Prof. Robert Durand, has been deeply involved in promoting closer ties between the community and the campus through these endeavors, and the history department gratefully acknowledges his leadership. Under Prof. Durand's guidance, the history department's external programs have been attended by nearly 30,000 students and community guests since 1988. These programs, taken together, represent a commitment by Macon State College's history department to both the mission of the college and the needs of the community. Friends, neighbors and families of our students who might otherwise never see this campus receive a friendly welcome, affordable family entertainment, and programs of films, drama and lectures to enrich their lives. A milestone was reached on Friday, July 27, 2006, when attendance at the venerable Family Night series, organized by Prof. Durand in 1988, reached 19000 people. Professor Durand retired in July 2008, and is now enjoying a comfortable retirement in Alabama. We wish him well, and hope to continue his tradition of outreach to the community.