2026 Dr. Scott Crider Professor of English, University of Dallas "The Pen's Virtue: Style as Rhetorical Character in Jefferson's Declaration"
2025 Dr. Diana Schaub Professor of Political Science, Loyola University Maryland "Lincoln’s Second Inaugural: The Rhetoric of Reconciliation
2024 Dr. Harvey Mansfield Professor of Government, Harvard University "On Machiavelli's Effectual Truth"
2023 Dr. Matthew Crawford Best-Selling Author of Shop Class as Soulcraft "On Gratitude as a Human Virtue"
2022 Dr. Stacey Peebles Professor of Humanities, Centre College “The Last Book Ross Taught: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian”
2021 Dr. Dustin Gish Professor, The Honors College, University of Houston “Reasonable Foundations for Happiness in Austen’s Pride & Prejudice”
2020 Dr. Jeffrey Church Ross Lence Chair and Professor of Political Science, University of Houston "Aristocracy and Democracy in Twain's Huckelberry Finn"
2019 Dr. Arlene Saxonhouse Professor of Political Science, Women’s Studies, and Classics, University of Michigan "Machiavelli's Women"
2018 Dr. Colleen Sheehan Professor of Politics, Villanova University "James Madison, Self-Government, and Civic Friendship"
2017 Dr. James Shapiro Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University “Shakespeare in America…and Texas”
2016 Dr. John Briggs Professor of English and Director of University Writing, University of California
- Riverside “Why are We Moved? Observations on Catharsis in Romeo & Juliet and Henry IV”
2015 Dr. Peter Augustine Lawler Dana Professor of Government, Berry College “Liberal Education in a Libertarian Age”
2014 Dr. Paul Cantor Professor of English, University of Virginia “The Economics of the Apocalypse: American Pop Culture”
2013 Dr. William Allen Emeritus Professor of Political Philosophy, Michigan State University “What Country Have I? Harriet Stowe’s Response to Frederick Douglass”
2012 Dr. Robert Bartlett Professor of Hellenic Political Studies, Boston College “Liberal Education and the Five Essential Questions”
2011 Dr. Michael Zuckert Professor of Political Theory, University of Notre Dame "The Consideration of Slavery at the Constitutional Convention"
2010 Dr. James Shapiro Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University “Shakespeare in America”
2009 Dr. Thomas Pangle Professor of Political Science, University of Texas - Austin “A Study of Machiavelli's Discourses on Livy”
Ross M. Lence Master Teachers Series
2026 Ross M. Lence Master Teachers Series
featuring
Scott Crider, Ph.D. Professor of English, University of Dallas
"The Pen's Virtue: Style as Rhetorical Character in Jefferson's Declaration of Independence"
Friday, February 6, 2026 The Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion M.D. Anderson Library Reception at 6 p.m. | Dinner at 7 p.m.
Dr. Scott Crider has taught for three decades as professor of English in the Constantin
College of Liberal Arts, the Braniff Graduate School, and the Institute for Philosophic
Studies at the University of Dallas. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees
in English literature from California State University, and his doctorate from the
University of California - Riverside. He is an award-winning teacher, both in graduate
school and in his long career at the University of Dallas, where has received the
university’s three highest awards for teaching excellence (the Haggerty Award, the
Haggar Award, and the King Award). Crider also served as associate dean of Constantin
College and spent several years teaching at the Rome campus of the university.
Crider’s areas of expertise are Shakespeare and Rhetorical studies, in which he has
authored three academic monographs. His first book, The Office of Assertion, is an award-winning writing manual for undergraduates that has been used by high
schools, homeschool networks, and colleges across the nation, selling hundreds of
thousands of copies and being reprinted in several editions. For more than a decade,
Crider organized and directed the Writing Program and Seven Arts of Language Program,
which continue to be the foundation of the university’s undergraduate education and
core curriculum.
The Honors College has set a goal of creating a $500,000 endowment to fund this program.
To date, we are more than halfway toward our goal, thanks to an anonymous donor. Click
here to donate to the Lence Seminar Endowment.
