Faculty Profile: Max O. Stephenson Jr, Ph.D.

Dr. Max Stephenson Jr. is an Associate Professor in UAP and Director of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy & Governance (VTIPG). Since 2005, he also has served as Coordinator for the Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree Master's International Program, United States Peace Corps. He earned a B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs and Economics with High Distinction in 1977, an M.A. in Public Administration in 1979 and his Ph.D. in Government in 1985 from the University of Virginia.

Research

Dr. Stephenson has participated in several sponsored research projects recently, including an effort funded by the Ford Foundation on Accountability and Representation in Negotiated Contexts and another funded by the Bernard and Patricia Goldstein Family Foundation on the topic Enhancing Resilience through Communicative Planning. Dr. Stephenson and a team of Virginia Tech faculty have also just completed work on a project for the Olympic Truce Centre in Athens Greece, “Examining the Processes, Necessary Conditions and Possibilities of Sport as Strategy for Peacebuilding.” The International Olympic Committee will soon distribute the report to its member nations around the world.

His major areas of specialization include NGOs, partnerships, humanitarianism and peacebuilding. Recent publications include:

• Exploring Low-Income Housing Delivery Systems: Roles of Nonprofit Organizations in the United States. Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements. Seoul, Korea, 2010. With Sang Ok Choi, Hye Seung Kim and Sung Je Jeon.
• “Conceiving Land Grant Civic Engagement as Adaptive Leadership,” Higher Education:The International Journal of Higher Education and Educational Planning, 61(1), 2011, pp. 95-108.
• In press, “Public/Private Housing Partnerships,” for Andrew Carswell (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Housing, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, Ca.: Sage Publications, 2012.
• In press, “Implementing the Liberal Peace in Post-Conflict Scenarios: The Case of Women in Black-Serbia,” Global Policy. October 2011. With Laura Zanotti.
• In press, “Theorizing the Role of Sport for Development and Peacebuilding,” Sport in Society. With Marcy Schnitzer, Laura Zanotti and Ioannis Stivachtis.
• In press. “Networked Organizations,” for Mohammed Sarlak (ed.). The New Faces of Organizations in the 21st Century. Toronto, Ontario: North American Institute of Science and Information Technology. With Tracy Cooper. 2011
• “Learning from the Quest for Environmental Justice in the Niger River Delta,” in J. Agyeman and J. Carmin (eds.), Environmental Injustice Beyond Borders: Local Perspectives on Global Inequities. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2011, pp.45-66. With Lisa Schweitzer.
• In press, “Reimagining the Links between Graduate Education and Community Engagement,” in C. Martin (ed.), Publicly Active Graduate Education. Syracuse NY: Graduate School Press of Syracuse University, 2011. With Marcy Schnitzer.

“Our article, ‘Theorizing the Role of Sport for Development and Peacebuilding,’ grew directly out of the Olympic Truce Centre project,” said Dr. Stephenson.

In addition, Dr. Stephenson and Dr. Laura Zanotti are 2011 ISCE Scholars. That support enabled them to spend a week in Haiti in May to undertake research toward a book on the Roles of NGOs in Post-Conflict Fragile States. Professors Stephenson and Zanotti also traveled to Athens, Greece in June 2011, where they presented a paper entitled, “Exploring the Roles of NGOs as Promoters of Peace: The Case of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland,” at the 9th International Conference on Politics and International Affairs of the Athens Institute for Education and Research. Dr. Stephenson noted the paper is “the last draft chapter for our forthcoming book entitled, Community-Based NGOs, Peacebuilding and the Challenges of Post-Conflict Governance, to be published by Kumarian Press in 2012.” Professors Stephenson and Zanotti have edited another volume for Ashgate Press (London) entitled, Building Walls and Dissolving Borders: The Challenges of Alterity, Community and Securitizing Space, which will also be published in 2012. The two are completing work as well with Professor Ioannis Stivachtis on a special issue of the academic journal European Security consisting of 10 articles concerning, “The European Union As Peace Actor.” That volume should appear in late 2012.

Students

Several Ph.D. students supervised by Dr. Stephenson and associated with VTIPG have won awards recently:

Emily Barry, a recent graduate of the MPIA program who plans to enter SPIA’s Planning, Governance and Globalization program this year, won a David Boren Fellowship from the National Security Education Program to study and work in Sri Lanka for 2010-2011.

Damion Blake, a student in the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical and Cultural Thought (ASPECT) doctoral program, was selected for a Social Science Research Council Dissertation Fellowship (Latin American Security, Drugs and Democracy Fellowship Program) 2011-2012.

Brendan Brink-Halloran a Planning, Governance and Globalization Ph.D. student, was selected for the Graduate School, Graduate Student Service Excellence Award, 2011.

The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) named Lyusyena Kirakosyan, an ASPECT Ph.D. student, a “Future Leader in the Field,” 2011. The Virginia Tech Provost also selected Lyusuyena in 2011 to participate in a special workshop organized by that office aimed at preparing the future professoriate. 

Dr. Derren Rosbach and Dr. Marcy Schnitzer, who completed their doctoral degrees in the Planning, Governance and Globalization program in 2010, each won the Richard Zody award for Outstanding Dissertation in the School of Public and International Affairs for 2010.