Rick Stack
Faculty & Staff >> Rick Stack
Stack, RickAssociate Professor
BA, Indiana University
JD, University of Missouri-Kansas City
Email: rstack@american.edu
Website: Richard Stack
"When the dynamic is right in the classroom, it is a most invigorating and rewarding experience. I like the excitement of exchanging ideas with my students. I like it when students don't take things at face value. They challenge me to deepen my own knowledge of a subject."
As a young idealistic attorney, Richard Stack traveled from the Midwest to Washington, D.C. to help find answers to the question: "Why do some of us eat so well and yet so much of the world population faces famine and starvation?" At the time, he had no idea that his interest in social causes would lead him to a career devoted to teaching students about the power of public relations in shaping public opinion on critical issues. Although he did not find the answers to all his questions on global resource use, his work led him to work in public affairs, and to his appointment as Executive Director of the Capital Area Community Food Bank. Invited first to make occasional presentations to college classes about his work, and later to teach a single course, Prof. Stack discovered a devotion for teaching and for working with students.
Prof. Stack is committed to the cause of death penalty reform and frequently uses his legal expertise and his skills in public communication to support that effort. He has chaired media workshops on message development for the National anti-death penalty conference Committing to Conscience and has been a panel member at the National Strategy Summit of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He has also collaborated on the documentary, Life After Death Row, which captures the oral histories of wrongfully accused inmates who spent time on death row before being exonerated. He is the author of Dead Wrong: Violence, Vengeance, and the Victims of Capital Punishment where he reveals the human side of the death penalty. Stack has also spoken out on behalf of Troy Davis, a Georgia inmate.
Stack has used his legal background in research that has analyzed media relations in the legal system and explored litigation public relations. He is co-editor of Litigation Public Relations: Courting Public Opinion; and is author of Courts, Counselors and Correspondents: a Media Relations Analysis of the Legal System (Fred Rothman & Co.,1998).
He is often a panelist and workshop leader at national and international conferences including the International Conference on Public and Private Partnerships meetings in Slovenia and The Netherlands and has contributed several articles to The Review of Policy Issues and other academic and professional journals.
Before joining SOC in 1990, he served as vice-president of the public affairs firm, David Apter & Associates; and was founder and president of RAS Consulting, a public interest/public affairs service.
In addition to teaching a variety of courses in the public communication program, Stack has served as Division Director and supervises undergraduate student internships.
In the news:
Rick Stack has been getting a lot of traction around his book, Dead Wrong and has been involved in book discussions and death penalty abolishment advocacy. In October, Rick spoke at 2 large assemblies on the campus of Savannah State University at the invitation of Martina Corriea, the sister of Troy Davis, a death row inmate. She had gotten a hold of Rick's book and asked him to speak at rallies on her brother's behalf. Within 23 hours of administering a lethal injection, the Georgia Pardons and Parole Board granted Troy a 90 stay of execution.
On November 13, the Georgia Supreme Court finally heard Troy's plea for a new trial. A ruling is expected in January. Rick says his small role in Troy's case is "exciting and humbling." Rick was interviewed by the three Savannah network affiliate TV stations. He was also asked to moderate a panel at Howard University following the DC premier of a capital punishment documentary. The program is under the auspices of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death penalty. Additionally, Rick was awarded a Montgomery County Arts & Humanities Council research grant. This will be seed money for the next book he's conceptualizing about Larry Griffin, a death row inmate whose claims of innocence are surfacing 10 years AFTER his execution. Rick was profiled in 2 pieces published in the Takoma Voice and the Silver Spring Gazette.
