Timothy Shaffer
Assistant Professor
E-mail: tjshaffer@ksu.edu
Campus Phone: 785-532-6849
Campus Address: 208 Nichols Hall
Education
Ph.D. Cornell University
M.P.A. University of Dayton
M.A. University of Dayton
B.A. St. Bonaventure University
Teaching
Research
As a scholar, Dr. Timothy J. Shaffer centers his research on the advancement of democratic practices by focusing on deliberative democracy, civic education, and small group communication with a concentration on the role of civic professionals in institutional settings such as higher education, NGOs, and government. He routinely presents at conferences and offers workshops exploring themes of civic engagement, civil discourse, and deliberative dialogue.
He has published numerous articles on deliberation, higher education, community development, and civic life. He has also contributed to edited volumes on environmental leadership, higher education’s historical and contemporary civic engagement movement, graduate education, and communication pedagogy.
He is co-editor of Deliberative Pedagogy: Teaching and Learning for Democratic Engagement (Michigan State University Press, 2017), Jumping into Civic Life: Stories of Public Work from Extension Professionals (Kettering Foundation Press, 2018), Agri-Culture and Future of Farming (Interactivity Foundation, 2018), and A Crisis of Civility?: Political Discourse and its Discontents (Routledge, 2019). Creating Space for Democracy: Dialogue and Deliberation in Higher Education (Stylus) will be published in October 2019.
Two additional book projects, When Democracy Had Roots: Civic Professionals, Group Discussion, and Adult Education in the Rural New Deal (West Virginia University Press) and Striving for Grassroots Engagement: Community Education, Social Justice, Cultural Competence, and the Role of Cooperative Extension (Michigan State University Press), are under contract.
For publications, CV, and public engagement, visit https://www.timothyjshaffer.com/.
Engagement
As an award-winning engaged scholar recognized by the International Association for Research on Service-Learning & Community Engagement (IARSLCE) with the Early Career Recognition, Shaffer approaches teaching and research through an engaged scholarship approach. He serves diverse publics a researcher with the National Institute for Civil Discourse at the University of Arizona and as Assistant Director for the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at K-State. In those roles, he engages communities across Kansas and the broader United States in civil discourse and community development. Additionally, he is a member of the Rapid Response Team on Civil Discourse on Race Relations established by the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) at the national level of the Cooperative Extension System.
Biographical Information
Originally from southern Ohio, Dr. Shaffer has spent most of his adult life in New York and Ohio. He, his wife, and three children live in Manhattan.
