Faculty/Staff

GERALD POMPER

Board of Governors Professor of Political Science, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University (Emeritus)
web site: www.rci.rutgers.edu/~gpomper

Gerald Pomper is Board of Governors Professor of Political Science (Emeritus) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics of Rutgers University. A specialist in American elections and politics, he is the author or editor of 21 books, including Passions and Interests, Elections in America, Voters’ Choice, and Negative Campaigning. In 2001, he published The Election of 2000,  the seventh and last volume in a 24-year series on U.S. national elections. His analyses of the 2004 and 2008 elections are included in books edited by Michael Nelson.

Dr. Pomper's broadest work is On Ordinary Heroes and  American Democracy. The book examines eight individuals, each representing a major institution of American government and politics, who made major contributions to the nation. When published in 2004 by Yale University Press, the book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. A paperback edition followed in 2007 by Paradigm Publishers, including a new introduction on heroes of the 21st century.

His most recent book,published last winter by CQ Press, is The New York Times on Critical U.S. Elections. A large reference work, the volume covers 21 defining elections in American history - 15 presidential and 6 congressional - during the lifetime of The Times, from 1854 to 2008. Long essays by Pomper precede reproduction of contemporary articles from the newspaper.

Educated at Columbia and Princeton, Dr. Pomper also has been a Fulbright or visiting professor at Tel-Aviv University, Oxford, and Australian National University, and held the first Tip O'Neill Chair in Public Life at Northeastern University. He has been honored for career achievement by the American Political Science Association and has served as an expert witness on campaign finance, reapportionment, and political party regulation. At Rutgers for forty years, he was chairman of the University and Livingston College political science departments, and chaired a select committee that, in 1996, proposed major changes, since adopted, in undergraduate education on the New Brunswick campus.

His civic activities include eight years on his local board of education, including two years as president, membership on his local zoning board, current membership on the borough's Redevelopment Authority, summer institutes for high school teachers, evaluations for New Jersey's former department of higher education, and service as chair of the Free Speech committee of the American Civil Liberties Union. He continues to teach regularly at Rutgers and other institutions, while providing commentary on the national conventions for CBS radio, and writing scholarly articles and occasional newspaper and blog columns.