Why I Teach: Dr. Colin R. Glennon
Why I Teach: Dr. Colin R. Glennon
In this episode, Dr. Colin R. Glennon, professor and chair in the Department of Political Science, International Affairs, and Public Administration, discusses how he uses news and current events to illustrate key concepts in the classroom. From breaking down the latest headlines to encouraging students to stay informed and find hands-on learning opportunities, he helps students navigate their studies of constitutional law, the judicial process, and American government.
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Video Transcript
Dr. Colin R. Glennon
Professor and Chair in the Department of Political Science, International Affairs
and Public Administration:
I really feel like compared to so many other disciplines, we have an advantage here
in political science, right? Our stuff's in the news all the time. Right. And it's
out there. And that gives us a chance that I think is really neat to kind of explain
what it means, how it fits in, and that can help get students excited.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle
Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs:
Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them. Our incredible faculty at ETSU. You hear their stories as they tell us "Why I Teach." In this episode, we will talk with Dr. Colin R. Glennon, Professor and Chair in the Department of Political Science, International Affairs and Public Administration. Dr. Glennon joined the faculty at ETSU in 2013 after completing his PhD at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and teaching at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. He teaches courses in public law and American politics, and also serves as the pre-law advisor and coordinator of the Legal Studies minor for the university. Dr. Glennon’s research focuses on judicial behavior and judicial legitimacy. He has coauthored texts in the fields of constitutional law, American government, and American political thought. Dr. Glennon also serves as a faculty sponsor of ETSU's award winning Mock Trial team. Go, Trial Bucs!
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
Enjoy the show. Dr. Glennon, welcome to the show. I start my podcast with the same question for every guest. Take me back to your first day of teaching at ETSU as a faculty member, and looking back on that day, what is one piece of advice that you would have given yourself?
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
Alright. Great. Well, first, thanks for having me. I appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to our discussion today. Thinking back on that first day, I think I probably think two things. The first would be to plan a little bit less and maybe what the class free flow a little bit more now, based on students’ interest, right, and the subject matter that's really landing with them. I don't think you maybe as a young professor, you feel more need to show your brilliance, right? And yeah, fit it all in. And, I quickly learned, at least I think quickly learned that that wasn't the best approach.
It was better to see how a lecture was going, feel it out, and let the students kind of dictate the pace of that discussion. And then I think the second thing, maybe that or the biggest thing I've learned is that the most important class that I teach is the Intro to American Government class. And when I started, I probably would have told you it was an upper division course. Right? That that was most important in the discipline. Right. I think I had it backwards as a young professor. You know, our majors are politically engaged and politically knowledgeable. And in the Intro course, that might not be true. That's a Gen Ed course where we get students from everywhere, right? Right. And so, the way I think about it now is for so many of these students, that's going to be the only political science they ever get. And I take that as a kind of serious responsibility. Yeah. If I'm going to hopefully share a community with these students for 40, 50, 60 years. Right. This is our chance to kind of let them understand some basics, get a background right, get some kind of bedrock knowledge about how the systems work and things like that.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
So I think those would be the two kind of biggest things that I've learned since I got started, to let students dictate the pace a little bit more, but also that, that, that class that sometimes I think is thought of or treated as as less important really is the most important class in our discipline I think. It's great insight. Yeah.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
Last fall, ETSU launched the inaugural Great Lecture Series, which features ETSU faculty who've recently been promoted to full professor. You were among our great lecturers last year, and the series allows our outstanding faculty to highlight some of the memorable moments throughout their academic journeys on their path to full professor. I really enjoyed hearing your lecture. For those of you who were not able to attend, could you please give our listeners a brief snapshot of your academic journey, including what brought you into this field?
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
Yeah. That's great. That was a really cool event. I was really honored to participate in that. I had a lot of fun. I've enjoyed hearing what other folks had to say. And sometimes we talk about, you know, oh, do you know X? And they say, oh yeah, she's this or he's that. Right. But really, people are so much more than that. Right? So, it was kind of cool to learn about the backgrounds of other people I worked with that I just would have never known without the Great Lecture series. As for me personally, I really probably got into this really for two ways. I grew up in Columbia, Missouri, pretty much grew up on the campus of the University of Missouri. Yeah, my mother worked at the journalism school there. We would go to concerts and events and sporting events and stuff all the time. Right. And it was just sort of even as a young kid, you could wrap your mind around the idea that the, the university and the campus was really the center of the community. Right. And so I was always sort of intrigued by that notion. We lived in a place surrounded by professors and stuff, and they were all wonderful people. And so that maybe sounds a little Pollyanna, but in some ways that was my introduction. And then to politics specifically. Yeah. I grew up in and I think this is something that made a lot of people laugh at the event.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
But I grew up in a, a, ideological divided household, right, with, with, parents who are on the opposite end of the political spectrum and would engage in these political conversations all the time. And I didn't know everything about it, but I just, I was fascinated. Right. And then how can these two people feel so differently about this exact same person or event? And you know who's right? I don't know, I was piecing it all together, so I was really interested in politics, from an early age. And, I like telling that story to the students as well, to tell them it's possible. Right? You don't you don't only have to to date or hang out with people within your same ideological tribe. Right? My folks have been married about 45 years now, so, you can do it. So anyway, I combine those two experiences that led me to studying political science at Mizzou. Ultimately, I got my PhD down, down the road in Knoxville, and, it's been kind of kind of great. It's a good thing because I'm not sure I'd be good at anything else. I couldn't play sports past high school. I'm not very good at guitar. I worked at a grocery store and a construction site for a little while, but I don't think they want me back. So, this is good. And then I think the last thing is, I really enjoy trying to approach things from different angles and this really lets me do that and encourage others to do that as well. In that particular speech, we talked about the distinctions between statesmanship and partisanship. Yeah. And we use the example of of trying to change the electoral college. And one of the things I don't like about our current sort of political landscape is so much of it has become do everything you can do to get 50% plus one, and then punish the other side and power through what you got. And it's true of the right, and it's true of the left, and it's not what we should be doing. And I know that's kind of cliché. And this notion of statesmanship tells us that you have to make sacrifices, or if you have to make compromises, maybe that's a better word if people don't want to make sacrifices, but compromises. Yeah and, you know, we, we use the example of the electoral college and you, you're not going to get people to change their mind by yelling at them on social media, right. So, we've got to work better within that sort of statesmanship guidelines. And so that was that sort of gist of the Great Lecture series, which was again, really cool. And I appreciated being involved in that.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
You gave an outstanding lecture.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
Thank you, thank you. Thanks for sharing that.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
So, in addition to the Great Lecture series over the last couple of years, you've also been involved in another successful initiative at ETSU. And that's the founding of the Mock Trial team. Tell us about that group and your work with them.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
Yeah, that's been really neat. It's been, a different experience than really anything else I've done. First, I got to give all the credit, really, to the legal team and the students they they've done, especially Lindsay Daniel, has done so much there. It's a really hardworking group of kids, and I've loved to see their commitment in, in some ways, outside of the actual mock trial stuff. It's been real rewarding for me just to see that group and see the time they've put in and the effort in the energy. You know, there's there's so many negatives we use as a society in describing college students right now. Right? Right. And to be fair, they've collectively they've probably earned some of that. Right. But but not all of it. Yeah. And not all of them. So, it's great to see that it doesn't apply like across the board. Right. And these students are driven, thoughtful, enthusiastic, hardworking, committed to a goal that's hard. Yeah. And seeing it through right. And that's given me energy and in a lot of ways to see them do that. You know we were you knew what we were doing. But you might have been the only one when we were getting started. Right. And so, I was pretty naive to all of that. It's been a fantastic learning experience, to come out of advance out of regionals and only year two. Really awesome. Just really proud of them. The future's bright of the program and it's been it's been cool to be involved with. And, the students have just been wonderful.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
Well, thank you for the time that you've dedicated to them. It's a huge lift and your support has meant everything I think, for the success of the team.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
Well, thank you. It's great.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
How do you describe your approach to teaching courses in public law and American politics? And just as an aside, it must be a very interesting time to be a political science professor. It is, you know, we we say, I think it's a joke. That's not a joke, that every four years, sort of outside interest in what we do goes up. Right? Right. We get more, more requests for events and things like that. But that's okay. That's that's when the rest of society is focusing in, in a lot of ways. I really probably to answer the question specifically, take kind of two different approaches. Sort of the American politics class is, again, to reference something like the intro. It's more conversational. So of course, there's going to be foundational lectures, as we call them. But nobody likes to just be lectured at, you know, for an hour or an hour and a half. We got to have some stuff, establish the basics of, here's the difference between the House and the Senate. Here's the difference between Primary and General elections. But I really like to encourage discussions where we pull in real world examples. And yeah, election time sometimes makes that easier in a lot of ways, because students are more acutely aware of the events you're describing. So, I would say that approach is kind of conversational. If you were going to put it in one word. In the public law case, we rely on the case studies method predominantly, right, where we use Supreme Court decisions to help illustrate points and teach parts of the Constitution and things like that. And I think it's really a great experience. I fell in love with those classes, the students, because of that kind of thing. I'd I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Dr. Richard Hardy from Mizzou. He really got me involved in that kind of stuff. It's great. But it really those classes are also kind of a they're an extension of our pre-law services here. And those classes, not all of them, but several of them are structured in really what you might call like a JV law school class. Right. Which gives the students a really great way of experiencing that. I always tell the students that, that I think making informed decisions, the most important part of deciding to going to law school and they're going is great and not going is great, right? They've got to decide it's the right fit for them and make sure that it's the right fit for them. And these classes, I think sometimes they can provide some assurances to students on the fence, okay, I really like this. Or maybe they don't like that class, right? And I say, look, I understand that wasn't a great three months in that course if it wasn't your favorite course, but we just saved you three years and $200,000, right? That that is a fantastic win. That was a good investment. Yeah. All right. That was so we make use of that method case studies in the public law courses. Yeah. And that's been really, those classes are fun to teach. I think they're fun to take. We get great feedback. So, yeah, that's kind of how we approach those.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
I always remember my Comm Law undergrad class was my favorite.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
Yeah, yeah. Me too. That's cool.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
I see so many areas of your expertise play out in every day news headlines. How do you use current events and headlines to help your students better understand topics such as constitutional law and the judicial process? I really feel like compared to so many other disciplines, we have an advantage here in political science, right? Our stuff's in the news all the time. Right? And it's out there. And that gives us a chance that I think is really neat to kind of explain what it means, how it fits in, and that can help get students excited. It does require us to be committed to the idea that we're not going to shy away from kind of hard conversations or hard topics sometimes. But I think that's great. One of my favorite things is when we hear from a student. Right. I was really looking forward to class today so that I couldn't wait to see what you were going to say about "X" thing that just happened. Right? Right. What were you going to tell us this means? Because I think a lot of times what we end up doing now is educators in general, but especially in political science, right, is sort of filling in the blanks or filling in some gaps. You know, we we all, but especially young people, I think receive and consume information in kind of quick soundbite, quick, quick tweets, quit Instagram stories. Right. And that eliminates nuance from so many of these discussions. But that I think is largely viewed as a negative. Then I understand why, but I think it also provides us an opportunity. Right. So, for a quick example, when, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in the Dobbs case. Right, right. We spent a lot of time in class talking about, you know, what that means. But the big flash in everyone's mind and I and on all your screens is abortion, abortion, abortion. Right. And of course, that's an important part of the discussion, but it works is a really nice way of telling students, you know, this is why it's so important to pay attention to your State Legislators, right? Because that's who's actually doing this. The Supreme Court makes a decision. Right? But if you feel passionately about the abortion issue one way or another, the way you're going to get your preferred policies put in place is at the state level. So pay attention to lobbying for legislation and legislators at the state level. Those things that students maybe pay attention to less, right? Right. Not just students. Society pays attention to less. Right? I don't know if this is a question you were going to get into later, but one of the things that political scientists are always so troubled by is these stats everyone's familiar with, where only X percent of the population can name their senator, yeah, yeah and it's always very low number. Right. Yeah.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
Distressingly low.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
Yeah. It is. And so, we're working on trying to overcome those kind of statistics. Right. And sort of I sometimes think of it as we can use events in headlines, to direct those conversations towards things where individuals and in our case, students can actually make the changes that they want to see where they can participate in the system. Right. And so it gives us a real opportunity to do that. That maybe isn't the way the first piece of information is digested. Right? But it's the way we roll with it after that. Yeah. How exciting. So related to that, how do you engage your political science students in community-engaged hands-on learning? Yeah, I think we kind of start at the very simple level, right. Encouraging them to participate in various ways. They can volunteer, they can vote. Yeah. They can work in community, right. They can work for, campaigns and things like that. I think there are other ways that our department with, Dr. Michelle Crumley leads, like study abroad programs that, think is ways of getting involved. We also make use of some class assignments. One of them we talk about is the Federal Register example. Right. And that any bureaucratic need for those listeners who are, unfamiliar, you can, visit the Federal Register and bureaucratic agencies who are considering new, directives that, of course, have the force of law. Yeah. Right. Right. You have an opportunity to comment on. Right. And, so many people don't do this, of course, or don't know. And I tell students all the time, you know, you guys should be dominating this. You guys love commenting on stuff online, right? Like this is right in your wheelhouse. Yes. So, you can visit in. And the other part is of course, if you if you're not participating, you know, think about who is, it's organized interest. Right. It's big business. And that's okay. I'm not anti-big business folks, but that if you just let them have the only say right, then they're going to have the only say, right. And so that's an example, I think, and we give an assignment, right. Go participate. Go visit the Federal Register. Right. Sort of following up on that, as are more, advanced students, it leads to things like internships in law firms. We've placed students in the DA offices, political campaigns with interest groups. Yeah. The Washington Center, one of the really cool programs we have in our department is the Tennessee Legislative Internship Program, where students would spend a semester in Nashville right now. The Legislature. That is that's cool stuff. Great. I'm jealous of our students to get to go do that. I think it sounds really neat. So, those kind of experiences that maybe don't come in your first year. Right? But once you've advanced a little further and we have a good idea about what you're interested in, right, we can kind of help facilitate those. What emerging trends in political science and public law do you find the most exciting or concerning, and how do you address these in your classes? Yeah, that's a it's an interesting question. I think to start with the positive, I think that a increase in interest in participation is exciting. Yeah. Sometimes we might think that other people's interest in participation is misguided in some ways, but that's okay. I think we can work with that in a lot of ways. Right. I love seeing stories about people who are politically engaged. Our students, others, right, that don't necessarily fit traditional molds. Right. I think it's exciting that this sort of next generation. And of course, you got to be careful speaking with these big broad brushes, but I think they're trying harder to break the like, binary Republican/Democrat thing than, than my generation did. Right. Or those before it. They're I don't know if it would be successful, but but they're trying right. They're trying to consider these other things are are not just fit in traditional molds. Right. And I think that's really neat. I think it's cool to read about small business-owning, gun-toting Democrats. Right. Like that. That's interesting to think about. Or, you know, young African-American gay Republicans. Right. It's interesting that and that this generation isn't putting themselves in the same political boxes. And I think that's exciting. What's going to come of it? I don't know. Right. Yeah. But but I think that's kind of exciting. Sort of politically in political science, I think we're at an interesting part, class kind of moment, maybe is the better word of trying to harness that. Yeah, right. And how do we help these students push forward with the things they want to do, while providing them with the foundation they need and the information necessary. Right.
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
You always it's always fun to be outside-the-box thinker. But I think someone smarter than me came up with this idea that it could be an outside the box thinker, but you're still going to have to work within the box to get things to change, right? Right. And so, try to help kind of guide that from people who are trying to change up a system that many you find kind of stale, I think is exciting. Right, but kind of mysterious in some ways. Right. As far as what's discouraging, within our discipline and this is maybe a little wonky, that wouldn't be of too much interest to people outside academia or political, but there's a little bit too much, I think, working backwards from the desired result in terms of some of the research that's happening. I would like to see, personally, returning to the idea of emphasizing what science means, right? There's a lot of determining the result ahead of time, and then you come up with fancy methods that lay readers have no idea what it is. It doesn't mean anything to them. And then you argue that that quote unquote proves your result, right. We saw a lot of this really in the aftermath of the George Floyd situation. Right. And a number of studies came out that proved and putting "proved" in quotes for the listeners proved that there was or wasn't racial discrimination in policing. Right. And you saw both of those kind of sides come out and too much of that. And I don't mean to discredit all of that work by any means, but too much of it was a researcher who started from the end who started with, that doesn't sound right to me. I'm going to prove that it's wrong or prove that it's right. Right. And then they work backwards with their methods. And I don't think that's good political science. I don't think that's good science, period. And I think it it also it turns off the public, I think these very overly sophisticated models that, you know, there's there's a reason that that people read Time Magazine more than they read our political science journals. Right. It's interesting. Yeah, yeah. And so I'd like you you don't have to sacrifice research rigor, of course. In fact, you don't want to, right. I would argue that sort of returning to that real notion of science, right. Where we start with the question, not the answer.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
Very interesting. Thank you. Do you have a favorite lecture or subject to teach?
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
I think so, in the Comm Law classes, I would say to probably stand out right away. One is always going to be Marbury versus Madison, right? Sort of the foundational case of the Supreme Court, you know, power and authority, the notion of judicial review. I think it's really cool. It allows the story there is so rich. Right? Yeah. Let's start with the presidential election of 1800 and kind of that'll blow their mind, right? Yeah. That talk about all the crazy things that happened there, the problems that led to the 12th Amendment, right. All these kind of backstory of how we got there and then leads to really the great question of judicial review. Right. And yeah, I think it's a it's a great reminder that, you know, that that's still a great question today. When is this right for the court to make use of this great power of judicial review? When is it not doesn't go away when the court rules the way you like it. They're upholding the law. And when they rule in the way you don't, they're abusing their power, right, as unelected actors. But that foundation is there from this really fascinating case. And then I like the case of, Texas vs Johnson as well. I guess for a quick recap for the listeners, it's the flag burning case, right where the court ruled that it was, the burning the American flag was protected by the First Amendment. That sort of expressive speech. And it's a it's an interesting case because it shows the way that the Constitution will have these impacts on your life in ways that maybe you didn't think. And I also think it's an interesting case because it shows a phrase my students will tell you. Dr. Glennon says a lot is that upholding the Constitution is hard. And supporting the Constitution is hard. And we have to commit to that. And yeah, particularly in the free speech arena. Right. I know there are various opinions out there. I, I personally am supportive of the idea that supporting free speech means, supporting the right of people you disagree with to say things you find horribly objectionable. Right. And and Texas vs Johnson does that for a lot of people. There are people who are legitimately and sincerely offended by seeing the American flag burned. Right, right. And so that case works, I think, to demonstrate a couple of different components of why that matters. And then in the American government space, the electoral college lecture is fun, right? Especially where so many students, I think, don't know that. Yes. Don't understand that. They're kind of familiar with this concept. I don't really know how it works. So that's really kind of cool, especially like you referenced earlier in an election. I'm already looking forward to that lecture this fall. Right. Because they're going to be locked in real time. Wait a minute. What? That's how okay. So that that's kind of neat. And I always like that again with the back story is interesting and leads to a discussion of potential other options that could be out there. Right. So that's always kind of cool. And then I like talking about political media a lot. The idea that how we consume information, why it matters, right. How you can participate. We're so critical of our political media now, I guess is a similar to what I said earlier. They've done some things to earn some of that, right? Yes. Yeah, that's true. But when we have them lay it out as sort of a business proposition, right, there's people it's a great reflection and it leads to this discussion of public opinion. Right. Because when we poll the public and ask, do you want more television programs about public affairs, about policy? Yes, of course. Right. Everyone says yes, but the numbers we have tell us a very different story, right? When you actually look at what people watch, they watch NFL football. Yeah. And they watch reality shows. Right. And that's okay. I'm not here to down talk either of those. I, I watch a lot of NFL football and my wife watches a lot of reality. So our TV feeds into those numbers for sure. So, but it's an interesting disconnect from what we say we want, from what we actually want according to our actions. Right. And then when it doesn't go the way we want and we say the public's uninformed, we blame the providers, right? Right. We don't take we don't take any of that on ourselves. They're like, wait a minute. There were you could have watched that show. No one did. You watched the Kardashians rerun. Right. And that's why that show isn't on anymore. Right. And so those kinds of conversations I think are really interesting to have as well. So, I like talking about those subjects. Yeah. Thank you.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
Finally, what impact do you hope you've made on your students?
Dr. Colin R. Glennon:
This is this is probably the hardest question you asked me in some ways. The first
thing I would say is that I hope that they took away and this is similar to, I guess,
what I was saying about our discipline earlier. The idea that understanding the right
questions to ask is the most important thing, at least in my opinion. I can't give
you all the answers because I don't know all the answers either. Right? But but if
we can try to understand why someone did something, why did this interest group feel
this way? Why did this party do this thing right? We can, then, we can try to get
closer I think, to actual answers. And so I'm a big believer in trying to teach the
idea. What are the important questions to ask? Right. Dr. Noland says all the time
not teaching them what to think, but how to think. Right. And and I think that's really
true. I think that's really important. So I hope that our students walk out of our
classroom and out of our major with that kind of mindset. Yeah. I think the other
part I would say that is maybe not only in the classroom, but the idea of I'm a big
believer in the importance of showing up. Right. Yeah. That old cliche 90% of life
is showing up. Right. But. Right. But I really believe it. I think it's true in the
political arena. Yeah. Right. I think it's true in class or at work. Right. I think
it's true in your life. I tell all the students I try to relay this story that, you
know, I love my work and I care about it a lot. It might be possible that that the
most important thing I've ever done is is coach Little League baseball, right? Like.
Yeah, just showing up and being there for kids or doing something you believe in is
really important. And and I hope that students understand that. So when you're on
whatever side of an issue you're on, show up, right. Show up, be there. When your
got to go to class. Right. Sometimes it's very simple. Show up right. Be there. And
I think the combination of those things showing up and then going questions first,
I think is really what I hope our students take away from, from my classes. That's
great.
Those are really nice lessons to impart.
Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle:
Thank you. Collin. We have a common interest in law and judicial process, among other topics that we've covered today. So, it's been a real treat to have you on this episode. I appreciate the good work you've done with your pre-law students and your involvement with the ETSU Mock Trial team. I've really enjoyed watching several of your students shine in their competitions on SGA and across our campus. Thanks for listening to "Why I Teach." For more information about Dr. Glennon, the Department of Political Science, International Affairs and Public Administration, or this podcast series, visit the ETSU Provost website at ETSU dot edu slash Provost. You can follow me on social media at ETSU Provost. And if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to like and subscribe to "Why I Teach" wherever You listen to podcasts.
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