William Ball
Department Chair, Associate Professor
William J. Ball is from Kansas City. He received his B.A. degree from Drake University in Iowa, and his M.A. in international affairs from the Norman Patterson School of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. His Ph.D. is from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Dr. Ball joined the faculty of The College of New Jersey in 1991. He holds the rank of Associate Professor.
Dr. Ball's general areas of interest are political theory and research methods. His primary area of research is the logic of political argumentation. He has also conducted empirical research on political tolerance and the Electoral College. Dr. Ball is a national leader in the applications to information technology to teaching and research in political science. He edited a series on Using the Internet in the Political Science Classroom for PS: Political Science and Politics (December, 1995). This series included his article "Using the Internet as a Teaching Tool: Why Wait Any Longer?" In addition, Dr. Ball has published articles entitled "Political Science: The State of the Art (and Slightly Beyond) in Online Publishing," in the Social Science Computer Review (Winter, 1996), and "A Pragmatic Framework for the Evaluation of Policy Arguments," in the Policy Studies Review (Summer, 1995). His paper entitled "Using the Internet to Enhance Classroom and Citizenship Information," appeared as a chapter in the book Education for Citizenship (Grant Reeher and Joe Cammarano, eds.) in 1997. In addition, Dr. Ball has presented papers at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, the Northeastern Political Science Association, and the Midwestern Political Science Association. His research has been supported by grants from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Political Science Association, and The College of New Jersey.
Dr. Ball has been very active in applying information technology to the political science profession. He created the American Political Science Association Gopher Server in 1993. This was the first system for the on-line distribution of documents and data established by the APSA. He is the editor of two political science listservs and is past president of the Computers and Multimedia section of the APSA. He has also been a leader in exploring on-line publication of papers and other materials by the APSA; a grant from the Mellon Foundation supports the creation of PROceedings, a web site on which papers delivered at the most recent meeting of the APSA may be accessed electronically. Dr. Ball is co-director of that grant project. On a local level, Dr. Ball established the web pages for the TCNJ Political Science Department and Pre-Law Program.
Dr. Ball teaches American Government, Political Analysis, Enduring Questions in Western Political Thought, American Political Theory, and Issues in Contemporary Political Theory.
