Dr. John R. Vile
I earned a B.A. in government from the College of William and Mary, where I was selected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a Ph.D. in the same subject from the University of Virginia. I taught for 12 years at McNeese State University, where I served for eight years as Chair of the Department of Social Sciences. I served as Chair of the Department of Political Science at MTSU from 1989 to 2008 and have subsequently served as Dean of the University Honors College.
I have written and/or edited the following: The Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues (2 vols., now in its 3rd ed.); The Constitutional Convention of 1787: An Comprehensive Encyclopedia of American's Founding (2 vols.); Great American Lawyers (2 vols.); Great American Judges (2 vols.); The Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America (3 vols.); Presidential Winners and Losers: Words of Victory and Concession; The Encyclopedia of the First Amendment (2 vols.); The Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment (2 vols.); The Writing and Ratification of the U.S. Constitution; Essential Supreme Court Decisions: Summaries of Leading Cases in U.S. Constitutional Law; Pleasing the Court: A Mock Trial Handbook (soon to be in its 5th ed.) and a number of monographs on the U.S. constitutional amending process. I have authored articles in a number of scholarly journals and have written numerous book reviews and entries for encyclopedias and other books.