Mudslinging

This episode of VCU’s "Civil Discourse" podcast explores campaign rhetoric this election season. The discussion of lines crossed and regretted utterances circles back to the concept of civilized political speech and the potential negatives of mudslinging.

View transcript [PDF]

About the Hosts

nia rodgers

Stephani (Nia) Rodgers is a public affairs research librarian with VCU Libraries and instructor who works with faculty, students and staff in the Department of Political Science and the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs to support their research and learning needs. She provides classroom instruction sessions as well as one-on-one consultations. Rodgers coordinates the VCU Libraries' government document collections and has a great interest in providing public access to government information. Her research interests include access to government documents, national security, intellectual freedom and open access.

john aughenbaugh

John (“Aughie”) Aughenbaugh, Ph.D., is assistant professor of political science in VCU's Department of Political Science. He regularly teaches courses on constitutional law, administrative law, public policy and American politics (among others).

Prior to coming to VCU, Aughenbaugh was an administrator at Virginia Tech, including stints as associate director of Virginia Tech’s Richmond Center and as an economic and community development specialist in the Office of Economic Development. Before these administrative posts, he taught various public law courses in Virginia Tech’s political science department, where he won a number of awards for his teaching.

Aughenbaugh has presented at a number of academic conferences, is frequently asked to lecture about the courts and government administration, has had a number of public law entries published in various academic encyclopedias and is currently working on journal manuscripts related to the federal courts’ impact on the work of bureaucrats, public administration service learning, as well as state research and development tax credit programs. Additionally, Aughenbaugh served on the Governor’s Council on Human Resources from 2007 to 2009. Lastly, Aughenbaugh has served in various administrative capacities at VCU, including being coordinator of the Graduate Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (HSEP) program, chairperson of the entire HSEP program from October 2010 through May 2012, and associate chairperson of the Department of Political Science in 2015.

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