—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Susan is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph's University. In her words on her faculty page:
My research, teaching, and media work connect political theory, public law and contemporary politics. As a national expert on gender and the Second Amendment, my scholarship on how gun rights and regulations affect democratic citizenship has appeared in both academic (Journal of Politics, Polity) and public facing venues (Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, Washington Post) – and I’ve presented my work at Duke, Columbia, Rutgers, George Washington, Brennan Center for Justice, and the American Political Science Association and Association for Political Theory annual conferences. As an expert providing television and radio commentary nationally and internationally, I enjoy translating cutting edge research in political science and law to public audiences.
My passion for teaching translates into lively lectures and innovative simulations for my courses in political theory, public law, and ideology and film – as well as supervision of independent research for Summer Scholars and other students. My award-winning teaching has been featured in the Washington Post. As the co-host of the New Books in Political Science podcast on the New Books Network, I have interviewed over 130 scholars about their cutting edge research in political science, history, and law.
The programs that I have developed include the Justice and Ethics in the Law minor, Global Smarts Mentoring Program for World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, Legal Education Advancing Diversity (recognized by the Philadelphia Bar Association magazine), and revised Pre-Law Advising program. I have proudly served as the chair of the Association for Political Theory’s Standing Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
I enjoy hiking, knitting, reading novels, my dog Olivia, and all things political. A college internship with Governor Mario Cuomo led to running the research department – and I’m a huge fan of internships. I particularly love events with students and if you read one of the books that I mention in class, I’ll buy you lunch to discuss it.
I quote Susan in my book, Sustainability Simplified. In it you'll see how much John Locke influenced my long-term vision for the US to understand and solve our environmental problems. Learning about the Thirteenth Amendment, which (mostly) banned slavery, and its improbable path to passage and ratification led me to think about solving our environmental problems similarly. I learned that many people working to abolish slavery worked hard when drafting the US Constitution to make it able to support abolitionism and to disallow property in man. Slaveholders opposed them, so they accepted compromises. Still, they put enough into the Constitution to enable weakening the institution enough to eventually end it. I wondered if sustainability might have similar precedent, like some law or phrasing of the Constitution that might have disallowed polluting or depleting. It turns out there was. It was in John Locke's Two Treatises on Government. The more I researched the man, his writings, and our Constitution, the more he seemed to apply to our environmental problems. That research led me to a paper by Susan Liebell, which I link to below. My conversation with Susan explore the application of his work and theories.