Essential Information

Location: Virtual via Zoom
Date: August 1 & 2

Eligibility: K-12 teachers

When completed, it is worth 12 hours of Professional Development.

Dr. Bruce Allen Murphy is a judicial biographer and scholar of American constitutional law and politics. He is the Fred Morgan Kirby Professor of Civil Rights at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, a position he has held since 1998. Prior to that appointment, he was a professor of Political Science and a professor of American History and Politics at Pennsylvania State University. In 1978, Murphy received his Ph.D. in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where he studied with Professors Henry J. Abraham and Robert J. Harris. Murphy is the author of four judicial biographies, the co-author of a textbook, and the editor of a reader. Professor Murphy’s books include The Brandeis/Frankfurter Connection: The Secret Political Activities of Two Supreme Court Justices (Oxford University Press, 1982), Fortas: The Rise and Ruin of a Supreme Court Justice (William Morrow & Co., 1988), Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas (Random House, 2003), and his latest book, Scalia: A Court of One (Simon & Schuster, 2014). In addition to his judicial biographies, Murphy is the co-author (with Larry Berman) of an American government textbook, Approaching Democracy (Pearson Education). Throughout his academic career, Professor Murphy has taught political science, history, and constitutional law courses, including: American Constitutional Law, Liberty in the United States, The First Amendment, Introduction to U.S. Politics, The American Presidency, and seminars on judicial biography.  Professor Murphy has extensive experience running teacher institutes having served as the Institute Director for The Rendell Center’s Summer Teacher Institutes in 2016 and 2017, as well as participating in the Freedoms Foundations Teacher Institutes for the past 30 years.

Ryan Bravata currently teaches AP US Government and Politics, AP Comparative Government and Politics, and AP World History and served as the Social Studies Department Head at Dutchtown High in Louisiana. He is a member of the Instructional Leadership Team and Superintendent’s Teacher Advisory Panel while also sponsoring Griffins Fighting Gender Inequality and Rho Kappa National Social Studies Honors Society. He was awarded District Teacher of the Year in 2019. Over the course of his career, Mr. Bravata has participated in many summer institutes including Gilder Lehrman’s Slave Narratives in American Literature at Yale University, NEH Summer Institute: Borders and Borderlands, and the Constitutional Scholars Institute through the Rendell Center. 

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