The University of South Dakota

William D. Richardson, Ph.D. Chair and Professor Joined The U in 1998 Dakota Hall 103 605-677-5242 william.richardson@usd.edu

William Richardson is the Odeen-Swanson Distinguished Professor of Political Science, chair of the Department of Political Science, and director of the W. O. Farber Center for Civic Leadership at The University of South Dakota. In 2005-2006, he was an American Council on Education Fellow at the New College of Florida, the state's highly acclaimed public honors college.

He received his Ph.D. in political science from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to coming to USD, he taught at Georgia State University in Atlanta. His articles on aspects of American government, political thought and ethics have appeared in numerous journals and books, including Administration and Society, Public Administration Review, Polity, Interpretation, and Public Voices. 

His books include:

• Administrative Ethics in the 21st Century, J. Michael Martinez and William D. Richardson (NY: Peter Lang Publishers, Inc., 2008)            
• The Leviathan's Choice: Capital Punishment in the 21st Century, J. Michael Martinez, William D. Richardson, and Brandon Hornsby, eds. (NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002)              
• The Controversy Over Confederate Symbols in the Contemporary South, J. Michael Martinez, William D. Richardson, and Ronald L. McNinch, eds. (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 2000) 
• Ethics and Character: The Pursuit of Democratic Virtues, William D. Richardson, J. Michael Martinez, and Kerry Stewart, eds. (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1999)                 
• Democracy, Bureaucracy, and Character: Founding Thought (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1997)
• Melville's 'Benito Cereno': An Interpretation, with an Annotated Text and a Concordance (Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 1987).