John Willingham

John Willingham
John Willingham, 2010
Born	(1946-11-23) November 23, 1946 Waco, Texas[1]
Nationality	U.S.
Occupation	Writer, editor, historian
Known for	Reviews of honors programs; essays; historical novel about the Goliad campaign
Website	http://publicuniversityhonors.com/

John Willingham is a writer and editor known for his collections of reviews about honors programs at public universities in the United States,^[2] for his essays about history, politics, and religion,^[3] and for The Edge of Freedom: A Fact-Based Novel of the Texas Revolution.^[4] In 2011, he founded and became editor of Public University Honors, a website that evaluates more than 50 college honors programs and provides information about honors programs in general.^[2][5]

Since 2010, Willingham has been a contributor to the History News Network, which has published about two dozen of his essays and opinion pieces.^[3] During the same period, his work appeared in a variety of publications including the The Texas Observer,^[6] Religion Dispatches,^[7] and the San Antonio Express-News.^[8]

Born in Waco in 1946, Willingham graduated from Richfield High School (Waco) and holds a bachelor's degree with honors and a master's degree in history from the University of Texas at Austin.^[4] He served as McLennan County, Texas, elections administrator from 1984 through 1992, and Williamson County, Texas, Elections Administrator from 1993 through 2009.^[4] In September 1998, he served as an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) election coordinator for the parliamentary elections in the district of Brcko, under the dual sovereignty of Bosnia and Serbia. During 2001–05, he was a member of the National Task Force on Election Reform. Assisted by funding related to the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the task force worked to improve the security and integrity of U.S. elections.^[9]

Publications

Non-fiction books

• A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs, Public University Press, 2012.
• A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs, 2nd edition, Public University Press, 2014^[10]
• Inside Honors: Ratings and Reviews of Sixty Public University Honors Programs, Public University Press, 2016^[11]

Novel

• The Edge of Freedom, A Fact-Based Novel of the Texas Revolution, Inkwater Press, 2011^[12]

Articles

• "Alamo Remembered; Goliad Often Forgotten", History News Network (HNN), 2010^[13]
• "Another Election Year, Another Catastrophe in Florida", HNN, 2012^[14]
• "Barnard, George", The Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association, 2010.^[15]
• "Florida Historians Standing Up to Rick Scott, HNN, 2012^[16]
• "Gail Collins Almost Remembers the Alamo", HNN, 2012.^[17]
• "Garry Wills and a Church Too Far", HNN, 2010^[18]
• "Glenn Beck’s Christianity and Abraham Lincoln’s Religion, HNN, 2010^[19]
• "Historians and the Prop 8 Decision, HNN, 2010^[20]
• "Historical Fiction and the 'Gaps' in Academic History", HNN, 2011^[21]
• "J.H. Plumb Would Be Aghast at Today's Distorted History, HNN, 2011^[22]
• "More Controversy in Texas over Textbooks, HNN, 2010^[23]
• "Rick Perry's War on Higher Ed in Texas, HNN, 2011^[24]
• "Paul Ryan's Hijacking of Natural Rights", HNN, 2012^[25]
• "Sam Houston, San Jacinto, and the Coming Civil War", HNN, 2011^[26]
• "Sarah Palin and the Static God", Religion Dispatches, 2010^[7]
• "SCOTUS Ruling on Affirmative Action Could Give Private Universities Advantage, HNN, 2013^[27]
• "Senator Cruz, You're No James Madison", HNN, 2013^[28]
• "The God in Whom We Should Trust, HNN, 2010^[29]
• "The Real Intellectual at Beck University, HNN, 2010^[30]
• "The Texas State Board of Education's Attempt to Christianize the Founders, HNN, 2010^[31]
• "The Texas State Board of Education and the Vindication of Joe McCarthy, HNN, 2010^[32]
• "The Texas State Board of Education’s Reasons for Elevating Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson", HNN, 2010^[33]
• "Texas State Board of Education Tries to Dilute History of Women, Minorities", HNN, 2010^[34]
• "Waco: The City Where the Waco Siege Didn't Actually Happen", HNN, 2013^[35]
• "White College Grads Preferred Donald Trump; This Raises the Question, What Happened to Critical Thinking?", HNN, 2016^[36]
• "Do a Majority of Republicans Really Distrust Higher Education?", HNN, 2017^[37]

Southwest Review, SMU Press

• "Summertime Passing", Southwest Review, short story, 1975^[38]
• "John Graves, Larry McMurtry, and the Nature of Goodbyes", essay, Southwest Review, 2015

See also

• List of historians

References

External links