Roanoke College professor Todd Peppers’ long-standing scholarship on the federal judiciary has been recognized with an award recognizing work that made a lasting impression on the field.
Peppers was part of a team of co-authors awarded the “Lasting Contribution Award” by the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association. The annual award is reserved for a journal article or book that was published at least a decade ago and has stood the test of time.
This year’s title was a 2001 treatise, “Selection of Federal Judges: A Note on Policy and Partisan Selection Agendas,” written by Emory University professor Micheal W. Giles, Virginia A. Hettinger and Peppers.
The piece, which appeared in “Political Research Quarterly,” has been cited nearly 600 times since its publication. In awarding the prize, the deliberative committee agreed with the assessment of political scientist Wendy Martinek, who noted in part:
“Giles, Hettinger, and Peppers also made a key methodological innovation. In particular, they created a measure of ideology for all US appeals court judges that explicitly accounted for the intersection of presidential preferences and senators with the rules governing the selection of judges. This was a major advance over the then-standard measure of ideology based on the party of the appointing president.”
Peppers, who is the Henry H. & Trudye H. Fowler Roanoke Professor of Public Affairs, was a graduate student at Emory when the piece was published. Giles was a valued mentor and conceived the new measure detailed in the paper.
The opportunity to be part of the project helped Peppers gain new insights that he continues to apply to his research and classrooms today.
“Working with Dr. Giles and fellow graduate student Virginia Hettinger [now a professor with the University of Connecticut] it introduced me to the importance of involving your students in your research and writing,” said Peppers, who has gone on to write numerous books and articles.
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Peppers’ scholarship throughout his career has focused on examinations of the United States Supreme Court, judicial institutions, civil liberties, and the death penalty. In addition to teaching, he is also coordinator of the James C. and S. Maynard Turk Pre-Law Program in Roanoke.
The American Political Science Association is one of the leading professional organizations for experts studying the world of political science. It includes more than 10,000 members in more than 100 countries.
