Ron Seyb (American Government)

Contact Information:

Associate Professor of Political Science
Ladd 311, Phone: 580-5248
E-Mail: rseyb@skidmore.edu

Click here for Curriculum Vitae

 Education

• Ph.D. Yale University, 1988 (Political Science)
• M.Phil. Yale University, 1984 (Political Science)
• M.A. Yale University, 1983 (Political Science)
• B.A. University of California, Irvine, 1982 (Political Science and Psychology)

Ronald P. Seyb is a Professor in Government at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. He received his B.A. in 1982 from the University of California, Irvine and his Ph.D. in 1988 from Yale University. He teaches courses on the American presidency, the United States Congress, political psychology, and the media and politics. His research interests include presidential management of the executive branch, political oratory, and media history. He has published articles in Journalism History, American Journalism, Media History Monographs, Presidential Studies Quarterly, The Journal of Policy History, and California Politics and Policy.

Honors and Fellowships

Skidmore College: Jon Ramsey Honors Forum Lecturer, 2012

Ralph A. Ciancio Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2005

Faculty Speaker at Commencement, 1991
PEW Grant, 1991
Faculty Research Grant, 1989

Yale University: John Enders Assistance Grant, 1987
Yale University Fellowship, 1982-85

University of California, Irvine: Summa Cum Laude, 1982
Distinguished Student Scholar, 1982
Phi Beta Kappa, 1981 and 1982

Publications

"What Walter Saw:  "Walter Lippmann, The New York World, and Scientific Advocacy as an Alternative to the News-Opinion Dichotomy," Journalism History 41(2) (Summer 2015)

"Trouble with the Statistical Curve:  Walter Lippmann's Blending of History and Social Science during Franklin Roosevelt's First Term," American Journalism 32(2) (Spring 2015)

"When Objectivity Works: David Halberstam's Vietnam Reporting," Media History Monographs 15(1)(2012-13)

"Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Getting and Keeping a Job at a Private Liberal Arts College, But your Graduate Advisor Didn't Tell You" (co-authored with Michelle Donaldson Deardorff, Marianne Githens, Glen Halva-Neubauer, William Hudson, and Grant Reeher), PS: Political Science & Politics 34(4) (December 2001)

"Reform as Affirmation: Jimmy Carter's Executive Branch Reorganization Effort," Presidential Studies Quarterly 31(1) (March 2001)

"It's Ideas that Matter: Pat Brown Reorganizes California's Executive Branch," California Politics and Policy (1997 Special Issue, "The California of the Pat Brown Years: Creative Building for the 'Golden State's' Future")

"Ronald Reagan's Administrative Presidency: Costs, Contradictions, and the Future of Administrative Action," in Eric J. Schmertz, Natalie Datlof, and Alexej Ugrinsky (eds.), Ronald Reagan's America (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997)

"The Death and Rebirth of Reorganization Planning: Symbolic Action, Divided Government, and Orthodox Administrative Theory's Enduring Appeal," Presidential Studies Quarterly 24(4) (Fall 1994)

"Nixon's Administrative Presidency Revisited: Aberration or Watershed?," Journal of Policy History 4(3) (1992)

Book Reviews

Review of Timothy M. Dale and Joseph J. Foy (eds.), Homer Simpson Marches on Washington in Choice 47(12) (August 2010)

Review of Peter deLeon, Thinking about Political Corruption, and Robert Maranto, Politics and Bureaucracy in the Modern Presidency in The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 541 (September 1995)

Conference Participation

"Death in the Afternoon or Smackdown? The Role of Leadership Skills in the Presidency" (co-authored with Richard Barberio)
Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Northeast Political Science Association, November 2001, Philadelphia, PA

"Jimmy Carter and the Transition to the Administrative Presidency"
Paper Presented at the Jimmy Carter Library and Presidential Center's Conference on "The Carter Presidency: Policy Choices in the Post New Deal Era," February, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia

"It's Ideas that Matter: Pat Brown Reorganizes California's Executive Branch"
Paper Presented at the "Pat" Brown Institute's "California Issues Conference 1996," November 1996, California State University, Los Angeles

"Ronald Reagan's Administrative Presidency: Costs, Contradictions, and the Future of Administrative Action"
Paper Presented at the Ninth Presidential Conference, April 1993, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

Discussant for the panel "Parties and Politics" at the Annual Meeting of the New England Political Science Association, April 1993, Northampton, Massachusetts

"Regulatory Review and Ronald Reagan's Administrative Presidency"
Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, March 1993, Pasadena, California

"It's Ideas that Matter: Pat Brown Reorganizes California's Executive Branch"
Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Western Political Science Association, March 1991, Seattle, Washington

"Nixon's Administrative Presidency Revisited: Aberration or Watershed?"
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 1990, San Francisco, California

"Ever Since Brownlow: Orthodox Administrative Theory and the Perils of Reorganization"
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the New York State Political Science Association, April 1990, Albany, New York