Father and son professors co-taught summer Ph.D. course

Father and son professors co-taught summer Ph.D. course

Retired Provost Craig Bledsoe and his son Scott, both political science faculty at Lipscomb, joined efforts to teach course including D.C. trip.

Janel Shoun-Smith | 08/21/2024

Generations of alumni can recall Craig Bledsoe (BA '75), as a political science professor and chair of the now-Department of History, Politics and Philosophy before he became provost in 1997.

Lipscomb students are getting the same experience today, but with a special twist: Craig Bledsoe is co-teaching a class with his son Scott Bledsoe (BA '14), now an assistant professor in the College of Leadership & Public Service.

The pair co-taught the Global Perspective and Policy course in Lipscomb's new Ph.D. program in leadership and policy during the 2024 summer session, including a five-day trip to Washington, D.C., led by Team Bledsoe.

While the two men's academic paths haven't been parallel, ironically they both came to Lipscomb to teach political science and statistics.

In his graduate studies, Scott specialized in religion and politics at New York University and American government at George Mason University, trained through a quantitative approach to political science. Craig has an interest in the American presidency and received more theoretical and qualitative training at the University of Florida and Vanderbilt University.

As the course is one of the first taught to the first cohort in Lipscomb's new Ph.D. program, father and son had to develop the course on the front end, drawing from Craig's long-time higher education experience as well as what Scott experienced at other institutions during his studies.

The pair had never planned and led a travel course together before and were inspired by how much the demanding trip full of visits to high-level policy makers helped to bring the course content to life for the students.

Mimi Vance (BA '21), a legislative aide to West Virginia's Sen. Shelley Moore Capito gave the group a tour of the U.S. Senate. Students heard from policy makers at the Tennessee Valley Authority, National Assessment of Educational Progress and the National Federation of Independent Business. They visited with Shirley Hoogstra, president of Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, and Christina West, associate vice chancellor for federal relations at Vanderbilt University, and observed a housing summit at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

While coming from two different generations, they did manage to get along and they certainly respect each other's teaching style. Craig calls Scott "more laid back." Scott calls Craig "more adaptable." Co-teaching is just as much work as teaching a class solo, say the professors, but each teacher must learn to give the floor to the other, balancing the delivery of information in the most effective way.

Craig taught off and on while serving as Lipscomb provost for 25 years and has taught some master's and Ed.D. level courses since stepping down from the office in August 2022, but he had not taught at the Ph.D. level and had to get used to the more interactive, conversational style of a Ph.D. course, he said. Scott, having just earned his graduate degrees in 2016 and 2022, was more used to the Ph.D.-level of discussion.

Scott joined Lipscomb's School of Public Policy in 2022 and has already received praise for his teaching chops, receiving one of Lipscomb's three 2023-2024 Outstanding Teacher Awards.

During his graduate studies, Scott worked as a research assistant with the "Closing the Gap project" at the United States Institute of Peace, a congressionally funded agency in Washington D.C. tasked with promoting conflict resolution.

As he finished up his Ph.D., he also worked with the White House Transition Project, which brings together scholars from all over the country to produce reports and memos to assist new presidential administrations. Bledsoe worked on the history of the effectiveness of the National Economic Council for a report ultimately given to the Biden administration's transition team.

Scott said his dad didn't push him to go into higher education, but "subconsciously when you grow up in a house full of books and conversation, with someone who is passionate about the life of the mind, that stuff seeps through," Scott said. "I saw the impact he had on former students. I had a great model. And one reason I came back to teach at Lipscomb was because of the professors I had here: Richard Goode (BA '82), Tim Johnson and Jerry Gaw (BA '74)."

"I think Dad brings wisdom to the classroom, in the sense of really knowing where the students are and what they need to be doing and thinking about. He knows what they need to get out of the class experience itself and how to get them there," Scott said of his father.

Craig said that teaching with his own son is "a little surreal ," but it's also "an amazing moment."

"What I have enjoyed watching in Scott's time here is his love for doing what he is doing. He loves academics; he loves inspiring students to learn. That is a freshness that I wish every faculty member had," Craig said. "In the classroom, he doesn't want them to just get a grade, he wants them to learn."

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