Biographies

BIOGRAPHIES

Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin (USA ret) is Wheat Professor of Leadership Studies at Hampden-Sydney College. He retired in 2007 as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense of Intelligence. He had a distinguished military career that began in 1971 when he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Infantry from VA Polytechnic Institute and State University. He served over 24 years in Joint Special Operations, with a command at every level. He spent 6 years in intelligence, two with the CIA, and was a member of the National Security Council Policy Coordinating Committee for Terrorism and Coordinating Sub Group for Homeland Securitiy. He was commandant of the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Boykin has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Bronze Star Medal Air Medal and the Purple Heart.

JOHN H. EASTBY, Ph.D is Elliot Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at Hampden-Sydney College. He has published on international organization, political theory and international relations, European integration, American foreign policy and Woodrow Wilson. He served for a year as Associate Dean of the Faculty at Hampden-Sydney and recently completed a six year term as Director of the interdisciplinary Western Culture program. In addition to his current teaching duties, he currently serves as Pre-Law Advisor. He holds the B.A. degree from Augustana College and the Ph.D from the University of Virginia.

CAROLINE EMMONS, Ph.D received her Ph.D in History from Florida State University, and is currently Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at Hampden-Sydney College. Her research focuses on mid-twentieth century America, particularly the history of the civil rights movement. A book of essays she has edited on the impact of the Cold War and McCarthyism on American society will be published by ABC-Clio in June 2010.

DR. DAVID MARION, Ph.D is Director of the Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest and Elliott Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at Hampden-Sydney College. He is the author of and award winning book on the late Justice William Brennan: The Jurisprudence of Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.: The Law and Politics of William J. Brennan, Jr.: The Law and Politics of 'Libertarian Dignity and co-author of Founders and the Constitution and the Deconstitutionalization of America. His essays on constitutional and administrative law, public administration, and American political thought have appeared in the Alabama law Review and the Review of Politics, among other journals and books. He also writes occasional commentary articles for The Washington Times.

WILLIAM W. PORTERFIELD, Ph.D is a native Virginian; he received an M.S. from California Institute for Technology and a Ph.D from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in inorganic chemistry. He has been at Hampden-Sydney since 1963, where he is Charles P. Venable Professor of Chemistry. He has written two chemistry texts, Concepts of Chemistry and Inorganic Chemistry, and has published scientific articles over five decades. As a long-time member of the Society for the History of Technology, he has had a continuing interest in the evolution of science and technology.

JAMES Y. SIMMS, JR., Ph.D is Elliott Professor of History at Hampden-Sydney College. He also has taught at Eastern Michigan University and George Mason University. He has been awarded several National Endowment of the Humanities grants and a Fellowship at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. His area of expertise is Russian agriculture--peasant well-being--in late Imperial Russia. Author of several articles on this subject, he is also co-editor and co-author of Modernization and Revolution: Dilemmas of Progress in Late Imperial Russia.

CHARLES W. SYDNOR, JR., Ph.D is former President and CEO of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting in Richmond, Virginia. A former president of Emory and Henry College, he has most recently worked in development at that institution. Sydnor also served as an assistant to Governor Charles Robb of Virginia following appointments at Hampden-Sydney College and Longwood University. A former Fulbright scholar, he is the author of numerous books and articles in the field of European history, including Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945. His expertise on the Holocaust led the United States Dept. of Justice to use Dr. Sydnor as an expert witness in some of the Nazi trials. He holds the B.A. from Emory and Henry and the Ph.D from Vanderbilt University, where he was also a Fulbright Scholar. He has held faculty positions at Ohio State, Vanderbilt and Longwood University, and was assistant to the President of Hampden-Sydney College.

GERHARD L. WEINBERG, Ph.D, Kenan Professor Emeritus of History at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, is author of A World at Arms and Visions of Victory: the Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders. He has been awarded the George Louis Beer Prize of the American Historical Association, the Halverson Prize of the Western Association of German Studies, and the 1994 Herbert Hoover Book Award. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he served in the U.S. Army occupation of Japan in 1946-47.

LT. GEN. SAMUEL V. WILSON (USA RET) retired from active military duty in 1977 after serving thirty-seven years and rising from Infantry Private to Lieutenant General. A highly decorated veteran of World War II, he spent part of the war in the 1944 North Burma campaign with "Merrill's Marauders," and in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Following WWII, General Wilson studied at Columbia University and in Europe as a foreign language and area officer (FAO), mastering several languages and becoming a specialist on the Soviet Union. Key assignments during his career included tours in the Central Intelligence Agency in the Clandestine Services and the US Army Special Forces. He served as Assistant Commandant of the US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, Deputy to the Director of Central Intelligance, and Director of the Defense Intelligency Agency. His career also included a four-year assignment in Viet Nam with the special rank of Minister. General Wilson joined the Hampden-Sydney faculty in 1982 and was appointed President of the College in 1992. He retired in June 2000 as President Emeritus after which he held the James C. Wheat Chair in Leadership Studies. He is currently the first Wilson Center Fellow.