Name: Stephen Smith
Title: Professor of Political Science
Education: Ph.D., Political Science, Stanford University
M.A., Political Science, Stanford University
B.A., Biology, Haverford College
Office: 338 Bancroft Hall
Phone: 803/323-4661
E-mail: smiths@winthrop.edu
Web:
Area(s): Urban Politics, Educational Policy, School Desegregation, Antiwar Movements, Social
Capital, Political Theory
Dr. Smith received his
Ph.D. from Stanford University and has been at Winthrop since 1990. In addition
to being a professor of political science, he is a member of the African American
Studies Committee, faculty advisor to Winthrop's Socialist Student Union, and
coordinator of the William J. Blough Undergraduate Essay Contest, which is
sponsored by the Department of Political Science every spring.
Most of Smith's research deals with desegregation, education policy, and urban
politics. He also does research on antiwar movements and writes about the
many problems involved in the use of the term social
capital.
Smith is the co-editor of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: School Desegregation and Resegregation in Charlotte (Harvard Education Press, 2015) and the author of Boom for Whom? Desegregation, Education, and Development in Charlotte (State University Press of New York, 2004), His other scholarly publications have appeared in many journals and edited books, including: North Carolina Law Review; Politics & Society; Perspectives on Politics; Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis; Journal of Urban Affairs; Robert Putnam and Social Capital: Critical Perspectives on Civic Engagement; and Race, Neighborhoods, and the Misuse of Social Capital.
With the support of a grant from the National Science Foundation, he is currently studying school desegregation in five southern cities. He also served as an expert witness for the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund in the 1999 trial of the reactivated Swann (Charlotte school desegregation) case.
Smith received Winthrop's Distinguished Professor Award in 2009.