Political Science Faculty ⋆ TUSCULUM UNIVERSITY

Dr. Troy Christopher Goodale is a lifelong Christian who attended Catholic school from the first to eighth grades in Maryland. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1987, followed by a Master of Arts in Political Theory (Philosophy) in 1992. He was in restaurant management until he returned to graduate school at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in fall 2002. He graduated and received his Ph.D. in Political Science from UT in 2007.

Dr. Goodale is currently the Chair of the Department of Social Sciences at Tusculum University in Greeneville, TN. He serves as the pre-law advisor and is in charge of the Appalachian environmental studies program and the political science program. Dr. Goodale is a published author. His book publication is entitled “Repealing State Legislative Term Limits: a Comparative Analysis of Legislative Statutes and Judicial Decisions.” He married Elizabeth Ann Bell in December of 2012, and they live on Gay Street in downtown Knoxville.

Shelby E. Ward, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Director of the Centre for Civic Engagement at Tusculum University. She graduated with her doctorate in Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought from Virginia Tech in 2019, and was an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Emerging Voices Fellow for the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin from 2021-22. Her work in postcolonial thought and politics intersects within political theory, critical international relations, and cultural analysis. Recent publications include chapters in the edited collections, Posthumanist Nomadisms across non-Oedipal Spatiality and Transnational Spaces, as well as articles in the journals, Critical Studies in Security, PERIPHERIE, and New Political Science.

Richard A Miller, MPP is the associate vice president for institutional research and effectiveness (aka Purveyor of Fine Facts, and Campus Provocateur).
Richard came to Tusculum in 2021. He is a first-generation college graduate. His mom is an Alaskan from the remote native village of Ilnik (Bristol Bay). His dad was a self-taught engineer from Pennsylvania’s coal mining country. Of note, Richard can trace some of his family to the community near Tusculum called Flag Pond! Having parents born during the Depression, he was taught the value of hard work and the value of education. Richard walked in family’s footsteps by working his way through college on commercial fishing boats in Alaska and the Chesapeake Bay.
After graduating from Maryland’s National Honors College, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Richard attended the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, earning a Master of Public Policy with a focus on economics and domestic policy. There, his teachers included a number of Nobel laureates. The highlight of his graduate studies was a two-time internship (1988 and 1989) in the executive office of the president (Office of Management and Budget), serving during the transition terms of Presidents Reagan and Bush.
Richard has worked in the IR/IE field for 25 years and has helped dozens of institutions through accreditation and planning. He has also served as an accreditation reviewer in the Middle East. Richard also serves as a referee for the Journal of College Student Retention. He has guest lectured as visiting instructor of American Government and Political Economy, referring to himself as an “ambidextrous social scientist.” About one third of first-year Tusculum students take his POLS 110 class. Richard holds a planning certificate from the Society for College and University Planning’s institute. He lives nearby in Washington County, where he maintains a woodworking shop, making pens and furniture.

Meagan Stark is a political scientist with a bachelor’s degree from East Tennessee State University and a master’s degree from Syracuse University. She is currently a higher education professional at Tusculum University, working for a federal TRIO program tasked with helping at-risk students succeed at the collegiate level.