Professor of Political Science Rob Baker has been named the 2018-19 Laatsch Scholar. Recipient of the 2011 Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching and the 1990 Omicron Delta Kappa Award for Excellence in Teaching, Baker has taught at Wittenberg since 1987. In 2015, the George R. Voinovich Foundation named him a Voinovich Fellow.
A former assistant to the city manager and acting city manager of Slater, Missouri, Baker is the founder, and co-director for 20 years, of the ICMA – Wittenberg’s Local Government Management Internship Program, which was awarded a special citation as an innovative educational program by the International City/County Management Association in 2005. He has also taught American Urban Governance in the International Summer Session at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Baker is the author of Government in the Twilight Zone (Suny Press, 2015), and editor of The Lanahan Readings in State and Local Government, which is in its third edition. His research has appeared in such journals as State and Local Government Review, Western Political Quarterly, PM: Public Management, PS: Political Science and Politics, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly.
A regular opinion columnist for Cox Media Group, Ohio, Baker has been an on-air participant for election and political analysis for WBLY-WIZE radio in Springfield, WYSO radio in Yellow Springs, and Fox 45/ABC 22 TV in Dayton. His current research focuses on legislative review of agency rulemaking in the states and the efforts by governors to minimize regulatory burdens.
Baker holds a bachelor’s degree from Central Methodist University, which named him the recipient of its Young Alumni Award in 1994. He earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.
