Education

Dr. Vile was raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. He earned his B.A. in Government at the College of William and Mary in 1973 and his Ph.D. in Government from the University of Virginia in 1977. He subsequently taught at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana from 1977 to 1989, serving for the last eight years as Head of the Department of Social Sciences. During the years that he taught in Louisiana, Dr. Vile attended three eight-week summer seminars sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Two of these were held at Princeton University and one at the University of Iowa. Dr. Vile has taught and served as Chair of the MTSU Department of Political Science since 1989.

Courses

• PS 2010: Introduction to American Government and Politics
• PS 2100: Courtroom Procedures
• PS 3370: American Constitutional Law
• PS 3370H: American Constitutional Law, Honors
• PS 3380: American Constitutional Law
• PS 3380H: American Constitutional Law, Honors

Publications

Dr. Vile's main area of teaching interest is American constitutional law. He also teaches American government and courtroom procedures (in conjunction with the Mock Trial program). He has authored and edited more than a dozen books, including:

• Rewriting the United States Constitution (Praeger 1991)
• The Constitutional Amending Process in American Political Thought (Praeger 1992)
• Contemporary Questions Surrounding the Constitution Amending Process (Praeger 1993)
• The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Change in America, ed. (Lang 1993)
• Constitutional Change in the United States (Praeger l994)
• Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments, and Amending Issues (ABC-CLIO, 1996), 2nd edition 2003
• A Companion to the United States Constitution and Its Amendments (Praeger 1993,1997,2001,2006)
• The United States Constitution: Questions and Answers (Greenwood, 1998)
• Tennessee Government and Politics: Democracy in the Volunteer State, edited with Mark Byrnes, Eds. (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1998)
• The History of the American Legal System: An Interactive Encyclopedia, CD-ROM (ABC-CLIO, 1999)
• Great American Lawyers: An Encyclopedia , ed., 2 vols. (ABC-CLIO, 2001).
• Presidential Winners and Losers: Words of Victory and Concession (Congressional Quarterly, 2002).
• Great American Judges: An Encyclopedia, editor, 2 vols., (ABC-CLIO, 2002).
• Proposed Amendments to the U.S. Constitution 1787-2001 , 3 vols., ed., (Law Book Exchange, 2002).
• Summaries of Leading Cases on the Constitution, with Joseph P. Menez (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). 50th Anniversary edition.
• Pleasing the Court: A Mock Trial Handbook (Houghton-Mifflin, 1999), 3rd edition 2005
• Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in America (M.E. Sharpe), 3 vols., co-edited with David Schultz. 2005.
• The Constitutional Convocation of 1787: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of America's Founding. (ABC-CLIO, 2005).

General Editor

Dr. Vile is editor of a series of books on Landmark Congressional Legislation for Greenwood publishers. He has written numerous articles and reviews for political science and law journals and has contributed to such volumes as The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States and Congressional Quarterly’s Guide to the Presidency, and The Encyclopedia of American Law. He has a chapter in A History of the Tennessee Supreme Court (University of Tennessee Press, 2002), ed. by James Ely. Most of Viles books can be accessed through amazon.com and similarities.

Study Guide

• On Common Ground: A Framework in Democracy. With Mark E. Byrnes and Daivd Carleton. McGraw-Hill, 2001.

In addition to his books, Dr. Vile has written numerous articles and reviews in a variety of political science and law journals, and he has written chapters in several books. Dr. Vile has received MTSU’s Outstanding Research Award in 1993 and 1999.

Activities

Dr. Vile works with Dr. Clyde Willis and Dr. Tom VanDervort in coaching MTSU mock trial teams. These teams have placed in the top ten nationally for eleven years, and students have won numerous individual awards. Vile serves as a member of the national board of the American Mock Trial Association and is the Chair of the Rules Committee. In 2000 he received the Congressman Neal Smith Award for Outstanding and Exemplary Contributions to Law-Related Education. Each November, MTSU sponsors one of the largest invitational mock trial tournaments in the nation. In 2002, 60 teams from more than a dozen states participated.

Vile has served as past president of the Tennessee Political Science Association, of the MTSU Chairs Council, of the MTSU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, and of the MTSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

Dr. Vile is also the campus Pre-law advisor.

Dr. Vile lives in Murfreesboro, is married to the former Linda Christensen, and has twin daughters. His wife teaches kindergarten at Stewartsville Elementary School in Smyrna. One daughter teaches tenth grade English in Knoxville (where she earned her B.A. and M.A. degrees) and the other, an MTSU graduate, is a student at the Marshall Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Dr. Vile enjoys collecting American art pottery and old campaign items and has several booths in local antique malls where he has stocked several thousand books. He may be reached at 615-898-2596 or by email (jvile@mtsu.edu) and is accessible to students and other visitors in his office throughout the week. He is especially interested in talking to high school students (and their parents) who are considering attending MTSU.