Tim Blessing

Tim H. Blessing, Ph.D.

Professor of History and Political Science

 

Educational background

• Ph.D. in History, The Pennsylvania State University, 1989

• MPA (1976), MA (1984) The Pennsylvania State University

• BA (1974), University of Wyoming

 

Biography

 

Dr. Blessing’s areas of specialty include:

• The American Presidency

• Leadership Studies

• Leadership in Popular Culture

• Political History

• The Early American Republic

 

Teaching Recognition

 

• Finalist (1991): The Pennsylvania State University Teacher of the Year Award (Hetzel Award)

• Finalist (1992): The Pennsylvania State University Teacher of the Year Award (Hetzel Award)

 

Publications and Presentations

• “The Presidential Performance Study: A Progress Report,” Journal of American History, September, 1983 (co-authored with Robert K. Murray)

• Greatness in the White House: Historians Rate the Presidents, Washington through [Carter (first edition)] [Reagan (second edition)] (Penn State Press: 1988, 1994)     (co-authored with Robert K. Murray)

• "Robert W. Fogel and the Illusion of Empiricism,"  Pennsylvania Journal of Economics (Fall, 1991).

• “Three Swings and Ten Dynasties: The Temporal-Historical Aspects of Presidential Performance,” The Presidential Studies Quarterly, (July, 1995)

• “The American Revolution and the Upper Juniata Valley: The Reconfirmation of  Localism,” (chapter), The Revolution in the Back Country of Pennsylvania. Eds. John Frantz and William Pencak (Penn State Press: 1998)

• “Top Down: A General Overview of Present Research on Ronald Reagan=s Doctrinal Presidency,” (chapter), Reassessing the Reagan Presidency. Ed. Richard S. Conley (University Press of America: 2003)

• “Presidents and Significance: Partisanship as a Source of Perceived Greatness.” White House Studies Quarterly (Summer, 2003)

• Reprinted in: Meena Bose and Mark Landis,  Eds., The Uses and Abuses of Presidential Ratings (Hauppauge, NY, Nova Publishers, 2003.)

• “The Lewistown Riots, 1791-1793 A Micro-analytic Approach.” Pennsylvania History (December, 2004)

 

Encyclopedia Article and Reviews

• "Scholarly Ratings of the Presidents."  Encyclopedia of the American Presidency. Leonard Levy and Louis Fisher, Editors.  New York: Simon and Shuster, 1994.

• Review of William Pencak, ed., The White House: The First Two Hundred Years, The Journal of American History (March, 1995):1694-1695.

• Review of David K. Nichols. The Myth of the Modern Presidency, for H-Pol@h-net.msu.edu (September, 1998).

• Review of Lynn Hudson Parsons. John Quincy Adams for H-SHEAR@h-net.msu.edu (January, 1999).

• Review of Timothy Walch, ed. Uncommon Americans: The Lives and Legacies of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover for Presidential Studies Quarterly (Winter, 2004)

• Review of Don Higgebotham, George Washington: Uniting A Nation for H-War (April, 2005)

 

Conferences:

• "The Epistemology of the 1920s Businessman: The Twain Diverges." Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Historical Association, Philadelphia, PA, 1983.

• "New Roles for Volunteer Groups in Local History," Daughters of the American Colonists Symposium on Local History, Harrisburg, PA, 1984.

• "The Systems of an Appalachian Region--Pennsylvania's Juniata Valley, 1754-1985." 1989 Southern Cultural Association Conference, April, 1989.

• "The American Thirty Years' War: The Indian Wars in the Humid East." The 1989 Eastern Historical Geographer's Association Conference, October, 1989.

• "The Deurbanization of an Appalachian Society." Twenty-Third Annual Duquesne University History Forum, October, 1989.

• "New Perspectives on Mental Sets." Twenty-Fourth Annual Duquesne History Forum, October, 1990.

• "Medieval Families and Modern Dysfunctional Families: Parallels to be Considered." Center for Ancient and Early Studies 1990 Conference, October, 1990.

• "Economic Legacy of Ronald Reagan," New York State Economic Association, October, 1990.

• "The Presidential Study and the Ranking of Ronald Reagan," Northeast Political Science Association, November, 1990.

• "Ronald Reagan and History," Organization of American Historians, April 13, 1991.

• "The Use of the Osgood Semantic Differential Scale to Measure Shifts in Public Opinion During the Persian Gulf War," Pennsylvania Sociological Association Conference, October, 1991.

• "A Historical Perspective on Attitude Change During the Persian Gulf War." American Psychological Association Annual Meeting, August, 1992.

• "A Matrix of Greatness: A Comparison of American Presidents and Medieval Rulers Selected by Medievalists." New York Society of European Historians Annual Meeting: September, 1992.

• “Student Attitude Shifts During the Gulf War,” Social Science History Association, October, 1993.

• “The Impact of the War of 1812 on Public Mentalités,” Duquesne History Forum, October, 1993.

• “The American Revolution in the Upper Juniata Valley of Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Historical Association, October, 1996.

• “The Filtered Presidency,” The Pennsylvania Political Science Association, April, 1999.

• “Presidents and Significance: Partisanship as a Source of Perceived Greatness.” Hofstra Conference on Presidential Ratings, October 2000.

• “Physical Boundaries and the Maintenance of Political Enmity: Mifflin and Juniata Counties Pennsylvania, 1791-1920.” Pennsylvania Geographic Society, Wilkes-Barre, PA, October, 2000.

• “The Lewistown Riots, “ Pennsylvania Historical Association, October, 2001.

• “Room to Talk: A Comparison of Context in Medieval and U.S. Political Leadership,” International Leadership Association Conference, Miami, FL, November 2001.

• “Ronald Reagan: Popularity and Personality,” Conference on the Reagan Presidency, March, 2002. (University of California at Santa Barbara)

• “Strangers in a Disordered Land: The West Moves East,”  Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, 2003 Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, July, 2003.

• “The West Flows East: the Dominance of Athe West” in Pennsylvania=s 1789-1790 Constitutional Convention,” Pennsylvania Historical Association, 2003 meeting, Harrisburg, PA., October, 2003.

• “Glenn Miller at 100: Towards a Reassessment of his Place in Popular Culture,” Northeast Popular Culture Association, 2003 meeting, Worcester, MA, November, 2003.

• “A Contrarian View of Leaders and Communication: Restricting Communication as a Leadership Tool,” International Leadership Association, 2003 Meeting, Guadalajara, Mexico, November, 2003.

• Served as a discussant on a three-person panel: The American Presidency in a Post 9/11-Post Iraq War World: Historical, Constitutional, and Institutional Perspectives,” The International Leadership Association, 2003 Meeting, November, 2003, Guadalajara, Mexico

• “Don’t Hate Us Because We Are Popular,” [A discussion of the intersection between Leadership Studies and Popular Culture Studies] [Invited paper], Popular Culture Association National Meeting, April 10, 2004.

• “Glenn Miller at 100: A Reassessment of his Impact on Popular Culture,” British Association of American Studies, 2004 Meeting, Manchester, United Kingdom, April 18, 2004.

• “Evaluating Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush: The New Blessing-Skleder Survey,” The International Leadership Association, 2004 Meeting, Washington, D.C. , November 5, 2004.

• “Control, Violence and Independence: The Huntingdon County-Mifflin County Border Dispute, 1790-1792,” Pennsylvania Historical Association, 2005 Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, October 21, 2005.

• “The Right Time, the Right Place, the Right Leader: A Model of Punctuated Equilibrium and Leadership” 2005 International Leadership Conference Annual Meeting, Amsterdam, NL; November 4, 2005.

• “Myths, People and Presidents: the Meta-Analysis of Group Myths as Detected by the Murray-Blessing and Blessing-Skleder Surveys,” 2005 International Leadership Conference, Amsterdam, NL; November 5, 2005.

• “Comparing the First & Last Nine Presidents: The Breakdown of the Selection Process,” 2006 British Association of American Studies, Canterbury, UK; April 21, 2006.

• “Rising to the Theoretical: Encouraging Mid-Career Professionals to Encounter Classic Theoretical Structures,” 2007 International Leadership Conference, Vancouver, CA ; November 2, 2007.

• “Defining a Free Press: Shades of Meaning in the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention.” Northeast Political Science Association; Philadelphia, PA; November 16, 2007.

• “Historians and Presidential Abuses of Power: A Look at the Conservative-Liberal Divide.” 2008 British Association of American Studies, Edinburgh (Scotland), UK; March 29, 2008.

• “Commonalities Among the Eight Leading Presidents: A Tentative Theory of Process and Founding.” Conference on “Attributes of Successful Presidents.” Massachusetts School of Law, Andover MA; April 27, 2008. 

 

Scholarly Recognition:

 

Pennsylvania Humanities Council: Commonwealth Speaker (2004-2006.)
Service Recognition

 

Grants:

• Fishwick Travel Grant for Travel to Popular Culture Archives (2004) [Funds for travel to Glenn Miller Archives in Boulder, Colorado.
• Grant for the NEH Summer Seminar: “The Early American Republic and the Problem of Governance.”

Faculty Video

 

     Francis Hall 231
     610.796.8235
     Fax: 610.790.1908
     tim.blessing@alvernia.edu

 

Courses Taught

American Courses:

Upper-level

• Colonial America (to 1754)

• American Revolution and Constitution

• The Era of the Civil War

• Jacksonian and Ante-Bellum America

• The Era of the Civil War (Civil War and Reconstruction)

• America's Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reform (1877-1920)

• America's Trial (1920-1954)

• America in the Late Twentieth Century

• American Historiography

Lower-Level

• The Study of American History

• American Conflicts (Race, Gender, and Preparedness/Pacifism in the Twentieth Century)

 

European Courses:

 

Upper-Level

• Tudor History

• History of the French Revolution

• Greco-Roman

• Late Antiquity and Early Medieval

• The High Middle Ages

• Early Modern

• The "Root” Centuries of Christianity

• The Age of Revolutions

Lower-Level

• The Study of European History

 

Other Courses:

 

History Courses

• Third-World History (Middle Eastern)

• The History of Medicine and Disease

• History of Science

• History of Murder

• Research Seminar

• Pennsylvania and Local History

Political Science Courses

• Introduction to Political Science

• Comparative Governments

• The Presidency

• Legislative Processes

• American Political Parties

• American Foreign Policy I (to 1898)

• American Foreign Policy II (since 1898)

• Internship Supervision

 

Other areas:

 

• Introduction to Geography

• Cultural Geography I

• Contemporary American Culture

 

Graduate Courses:

 

• Statistical Methods for Sociologists (St. Joseph’s University)

• Advanced Systems Analysis ******

• Presidency *********

 

@ The Pennsylvania State University:

 

• American Civilization

• Western Civilization to 1715

• Western Civilization since 1715

• Non-Western Cultures

• Middle Eastern

• Middle Eastern (Honors)

• Pre-Columbian Native American

• Pre-Columbian Native American (Honors)

• African

• Japanese

• American History to 1865

• American History since 1865

• American History since 1865 (Honors)

• History of Pennsylvania

• Introduction to Political Science

• World Political Theory