Stephen Smith

Dr. Stephen A. Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Communication at the University of Arkansas, where he joined the faculty in 1983 after receiving his Ph.D. in Communication Studies at Northwestern University and completing special studies in First Amendment issues at Harvard Law School. He has been a Visiting Fellow in Wolfson College, Faculty of Law, at the University of Cambridge; Visiting Fellow in Manchester College, Faculty of Modern History, at the University of Oxford; an Andrew Mellon Fellow in the Department of History and the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, University of Pennsylvania; a Visiting Fellow at the University of Wisconsin's LaFollette Institute of Public Affairs; a Visiting Fellow in the Departments of Politics and Anthropology at Princeton University a Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School; and a Visiting Professor of Rhetoric and Communication Studies at the University of Virginia. Smith previously served as a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, Vice President of the Arkansas Constitutional Convention, Chief of Staff to the Attorney General, and Executive Assistant to Governor Bill Clinton.

Smith taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Methodology of Communication Research, Political Communication, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Rhetoric of American Women, and Rhetoric of the Working Class, as well as the summer study abroad program at Oxford and Cambridge. Professor Smith received the Fulbright College Master Teacher Award in 1986, the Lambda Pi Eta National Award for Teaching Excellence in 1988, the American Communication Association Outstanding Mentor Award in 1998, the Student Alumni Board Outstanding Teacher Award in 2001, and the ASG Outstanding Teacher Award in 2003. He was named a Chancellor's Lecturer in 1993.

Smith's books include, Myth, Media and the Southern Mind (Arkansas,1985); Clinton on Stump, State and Stage: The Rhetorical Road to the White House (Arkansas, 1994); Preface to the Presidency: The Speeches of Bill Clinton, 1974-1992 (Arkansas, 1996); Electronic Tribes (Texas, 2009); Communication Shock (Cambridge Scholars, 2015); First Amendment Studies in Arkansas (Arkansas, 2016); and Freedom of Religion: Foundational Documents and Historical Arguments (Oxbridge Research Associates, 2017). He has also contributed more than 60 book chapters and scholarly articles in such journals as Free Speech Yearbook, Oregon Law Review, Arkansas Law Review, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, American Communication Journal, Communication Education, Southern Communication Journal, Communication Law Review, Journal of American Culture, Journal of Popular Culture, Southern Cultures, Studies in Popular Culture, Journal of Communication Inquiry, Journal of Communication Studies, and Journal of State Government. His research has been awarded the National Communication Association Golden Anniversary Monograph Award, the National Communication Association Wichelns Award for Communication and Law, the National Communication Association Haiman Award for Scholarship in Freedom of Expression, the National Communication Association William O. Douglas Prize, the Southern States Communication Association Madison Prize, the Arkansas Library Association's Arkansiana Award, and the Fulbright Research Prize in Communication Studies. He received the Fulbright College Master Researcher Award in 2002.

Past and present professional service includes Board of Directors of the International Communication Association; Senior Fellow, Board of Directors, and President of the American Communication Association; Chair of the National Communication Association Task Force on Undergraduate Research; Chair of the National Communication Association Commission on Freedom of Expression; Executive Council of Southern States Communication Association; and Executive Committee of the Arkansas State Communication Association. Smith has been Editor of Free Speech Yearbook, Editor of Communication Law Review, and Editor of the Journal of Communication Studies; Associate Editor of the American Communication Journal, Associate Editor of the Southern Communication Journal, and Associate Editor of Journal of Social Media in Society. He is a past President of AFSCME Local 965 and the Northwest Arkansas Labor Council.