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Alan Beck

Professor of Political Sciences

  • A-207
  • 352-395-5009
  • alan.beck@sfcollege.edu

Information

I earned a BA in Political Science and Journalism at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York, in 1983. I was the first person in my family to have ever graduated from college. For the next five years, I was in the field of publishing, ultimately working two years as an assistant editor with World Tennis Magazine. During this time, I decided to do something more important with my life, and took evening courses in order to earn an MA in Political Science at Brooklyn College.

I then began an 11-year tenure at the Committee for Modern Courts, a New York City based non-profit dedicated to improving the quality and fairness of the New York State justice system. We worked on and obtained improvements in the way judges are selected, in the way poor people are treated in the Family and Housing Courts, in the jury duty system, in the physical facilities of the state’s courts, etc.

During my last several years at Modern Courts, I began working in the evenings toward my Ph.D. at the City University of New York Graduate Center. I earned my degree in Political Science, specializing in American Politics, in 2000, after publishing my doctoral dissertation.  The 400-page dissertation explored U.S. welfare policy, challenging the premises behind the welfare “reform” law that was passed in 1996 and that actually made life harder for poor single mothers and their children. Welfare policy and the politics of poverty is my area of research expertise.

I began my new career in academia in the fall of 2000, when I began a two-year stint as a visiting professor at Elmira College, a small college in upstate New York. I then taught another two years as a visiting professor at Juniata College, a small college in central Pennsylvania, before landing this tenure-track professor job at Santa Fe Community College, where I started in the fall term of 2005.

A person’s personal background and experience has a lot to do with one’s political perspective. I grew up in a lower working-class, single-parent, Jewish, urban family in Brooklyn, New York. I was the first person in my family to finish college. All of these factors have a lot to do with my personal perspective on politics. My lovely wife and I have been married for fourteen years, and we have a charming and brilliant eleven-year-old son. Among many other things, I am an avid reader on politics, a merely decent but enthusiastic tennis player, a good chess player, a really good Scrabble player, a huge fan of the New York Mets, and a big aficionado of all kinds of music.

Education

2000 Ph.D. Political Science

1983 BA in Political Science and Journalism

Office Hours

MWF 1:15 - 3:00 p.m.

T/TH 10:00 - 12:00 p.m.

Courses

POS 2041 Syllabus

POS 2041H Syllabus

POT 2002 Syllabus

CPO 2001 Syllabus

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3000 NW 83rd Street
Gainesville, FL 32606

352-395-5000
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Commitment to Equal Access and Equal Opportunity

Santa Fe College is committed to an environment that embraces diversity, respects the rights of all individuals, is open and accessible, and is free of harassment and discrimination. For more information, visit sfcollege.edu/eaeo.

SACSCOC Accreditation Statement

Santa Fe College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). For more information, visit sfcollege.edu/sacscoc.

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