John Willingham is a writer and editor known for his collections of reviews about honors programs at public universities in the United States, for his essays about history, literature, politics, and religion, and for ''The Edge of Freedom: A Fact-Based Novel of the Texas Revolution''. In 2011, he founded and became editor of Public University Honors, a website that evaluates more than 50 college honors programs and provides information about honors programs in general. He is opposed to numerical rankings of colleges or honors programs, asserting in the 2018 edition that "Rankings presume a perfection that they cannot meet." His reviews place programs in groups, with the top group of 10 or so receiving the highest rating. Willingham has been a contributor to the

History News Network History News Network (HNN) at George Washington University is a platform for historians writing about current events. History History News Network (HNN) is a non-profit corporation registered in Washington DC. HNN was founded by Richard Shenkman ...

, which has published about two dozen of his essays and opinion pieces. During the same period, his work appeared in a variety of publications including ''

The Texas Observer ''The Texas Observer'' (also known as the ''Observer'') is an American magazine with a liberal political outlook. The ''Observer'' is published bimonthly by a 501(c)(3) and the ''

San Antonio Express-News The ''San Antonio Express-News'' is a daily newspaper in San Antonio, Texas. It is owned by the Hearst Corporation and has offices in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The ''Express-News'' is the third largest newspaper in the state of Texas, with ...

.'' Born in

Waco Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...

, Willingham graduated from

Richfield High School (Waco) Richfield High School was a school formerly located in Waco, Texas. The school began construction in 1960 and opened in September 1961. It was situated on the site of a World War I army airfield, Rich Field. In 1986, Richfield was consolidated wi ...

and holds a bachelor's degree with honors and a master's degree in history from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. He served as

McLennan County, Texas McLennan County is a County (United States), county located on the Edwards Plateau in Central Texas. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, its population was 260,579 . Its county seat and largest city is Waco, Texas, Waco. The U.S. c ...

, elections administrator from 1984 through 1992, and

Williamson County, Texas Williamson County (sometimes abbreviated as "Wilco") is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 609,017. Its county seat is Georgetown. The county is named for Robert McAlpin Williamson (1804?–1859), ...

, Elections Administrator from 1993 through 2009. In September 1998, he served as an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (

OSCE The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, prom ...

) election coordinator for the general election in the district of Brcko, under the dual sovereignty of Bosnia and Serbia. During 2001–05, he was a member of the National Task Force on Election Reform. Assisted by funding related to the

Help America Vote Act The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (), or HAVA, is a United States federal law which passed in the House 357-48 and 92-2 in the Senate and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002.United States Department of Justice Civil Rights ...

of 2002, the task force worked to improve the security and integrity of U.S. elections.

Publications

Non-fiction books

*''A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs'', Public University Press, 2014 *''Inside Honors: Ratings and Reviews of Sixty Public University Honors Programs'', Public University Press, 2016 *''Inside Honors 2018-2019: Ratings and Reviews of 50 Public University Honors Programs'', Public University Press, 2018 *''Inside Honors 2020-2021: Ratings and Reviews of 40 Public University Honors Programs'', Public University Press, 2020

Novel

*''The Edge of Freedom, A Fact-Based Novel of the Texas Revolution'', Inkwater Press, 2011

Selected Op-Eds

*"Gail Collins Almost Remembers the Alamo", HNN, 2012. *"Glenn Beck’s Christianity and Abraham Lincoln’s Religion, HNN, 2010 *"Historical Fiction and the 'Gaps' in Academic History", HNN, 2011 *"J.H. Plumb Would Be Aghast at Today's Distorted History", HNN, 2011 *"Rick Perry's War on Higher Ed in Texas, HNN, 2011 *"Paul Ryan's Hijacking of Natural Rights", HNN, 2012 *"Sarah Palin and the Static God", Religion Dispatches, 2010 *"Waco: The City Where the Waco Siege Didn't Actually Happen", HNN, 2013 *"White College Grads Preferred Donald Trump; This Raises the Question, What Happened to Critical Thinking?", HNN, 2016 *"Do a Majority of Republicans Really Distrust Higher Education?", HNN, 2017 *"What's Driving the Latest Texas History Wars?", HNN, 2022

Literary Magazines

*"Summertime Passing", ''Southwest Review'', short story, 1975 *"John Graves, Larry McMurtry, and the Nature of Goodbyes", ''Southwest Review'', essay, 2015 *"Paulette Jiles and the Aura of the News", essay, ''San Antonio Review'', 2021 *"The Real Sickness in America", essay, ''San Antonio Review'', 2022

References