College Leaders Program: Faculty
Professor Quentin Kidd
Quentin Kidd is an associate professor of political science at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. At CNU, Kidd teaches courses in American politics, Virginia politics, and research methods. The students at CNU have twice named him “Professor of the Year.” In 2003 he was nominated for the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia's Outstanding Faculty Award. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Texas Tech University and a BA and MA from the University of Arkansas.
He serves on the Virginia Commission for National and Community Service. Dr. Kidd also served for eleven years in the Army and Army Reserve as a psychological warfare specialist, including a combat tour in Kuwait and Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 where he was awarded an Army Commendation Medal with “v” device for actions in combat.
Kidd is the editor of two books, American Government: Readings From Across Society (Longman) and Government and Politics in Virginia: The Old Dominion at the 21st Century (Simon & Schuster), and is the author or co-author of research that has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, American Politics Research, Social Science Quarterly, Legislative Studies Quarterly, PS: Political Science & Politics, and the Texas Journal of Political Studies.
Click here to read Dr. Kidd's full CV (pdf).
Professor Steve Bragaw
Steve Bragaw is Professor of American Politics and Chair of the Department of Government and International Affairs at Sweet Briar College. The Director of Sweet Briar's Law & Society program, he teaches courses on public policy, American political and legal development, social movements and the law, as well as American politics and popular culture.
Bragaw's primary research and writing focuses on the role of the Supreme Court in negotiating the boundaries of power and authority, with secondary interests in media and politics, and the politics of civic education. He has delivered lectures for the Supreme Court Historical Society, the John Marshall Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Gunston Hall, the Center for Civic Education, and the American Bar Association's Public Education Division, and is a frequent commentator on national and state politics for television as well as public and talk radio.
His interest in public policy is not academic: as co-chair of the Virginia Delegation to the Congressional Conference on Civics Education, Bragaw led the movement that resulted in Gov. Warner signing the bill creating the Virginia Commission on Civics Education in 2005. Over the past four years, the Commission has reexamined the role of civics education in Virginia's public schools and made numerous policy suggestions to the Department of Education. For four years he also led the "Project Citizen" program in of the Center for Civic Education, a public policy curriculum program for secondary schools.
Prof. Bragaw earned his bachelor's degree in politics, philosophy, and economics from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, a Master of Business Administration from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his Masters and PhD in government from the University of Virginia. He lives in Crozet, VA, with his wife and four children, and is an avid vegetable gardener.
