Political Science » Melissa Deckman

Melissa Deckman

Professor of Political Science Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs

A native Marylander, Professor Deckman graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 1993 and received her Ph.D. in Political Science from American University in 1999.

Prior to joining the faculty of Washington College in 2000, she taught American politics at American University and served as a Research Associate with the Federal Judicial Center, the education and research arm of the federal courts. She is currently the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs and Chair of the Political Science Department at Washington College. She is also an Affiliated Scholar with the Public Religion Research Institute, where she writes regularly about religion, gender, and politics at its Faith in the Numbers blog.

Professor Deckman’s areas of specialty include religion and politics, state and local politics, and women and politics. Dr. Deckman’s current research focuses on the ways that religion, gender, and politics intersect, including in the new Tea Party movement. She is on sabbatical for academic year 2012-2013.

She is the author of School Board Battles: the Christian Right in Local Politics (Georgetown University Press 2004), which examines the impact of the Christian Right on school board elections, and which won the 2007 Hubert Morken Award, given by the American Political Science Association biennially to the best work on religion and politics. Along with Laura Olson and Sue Crawford, she is the co-author of Women with a Mission: Gender, Religion, and the Politics of Women Clergy (University of Alabama Press 2005). She is also co-author of the textbook Women and Politics: Paths to Power and Political Influence with Julie Dolan and Michele Swers, now in its second edition with Pearson/Prentice Hall. Her forthcoming edited volume, Curriculum and the Culture War: When and Where is the Bible Appropriate in Public Schools? edited with Joseph Prud’homme, will be published in the early 2013.

Her work also appears in numerous academic articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Politics & Religion, Social Science Quarterly, Public Administration Review, Review of Religious Research, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Journal of Women, Politics, and Public Policy, and American Politics Research.

At the introductory level, Professor Deckman teaches American Government and Politics. She also offers advanced courses about women and politics, elections and the political process, religion and politics, state and local politics, and empirical political research methods. She also coordinates the Maryland General Assembly Internship, which allows students to spend two days per week as state legislative interns in Annapolis during the spring semester.

As an undergraduate, Professor Deckman studied abroad in Costa Rica and England and she has traveled widely. In addition to traveling with her husband Sean, she enjoys spending time with her family—including making music and watching Phineas and Ferb with her two sons Mason and Gavin–cooking, running, and watching the Food Network.