David Timmerman

David M. Timmerman has served as Carthage Provost and Chief Academic Officer since August of 2018. In July 2019, he was named Chief Operating Officer.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, Provost Timmerman went on to earn a Master of Divinity from the Denver Seminary. After earning a Doctor of Philosophy in communication from Purdue University, he began his formal academic career at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, in 1994. There, he worked in roles of increasing responsibility for 16 years, receiving the McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2005.

An accomplished scholar, teacher, and administrator, Provost Timmerman came to Carthage from Monmouth College in western Illinois, where he served as dean of the faculty and vice president of academic affairs. While at Monmouth, he oversaw the development of the college’s academic program, and worked collaboratively with faculty to create successful interdisciplinary programs in global food security, global public health, arts management, and peace and social justice. His scholarship has focused on rhetoric in ancient Greece, and how rhetoric developed as a discipline in conjunction with the birth of democracy and the liberal arts tradition. Provost Timmerman has taught courses such as Citizenship, Classical Rhetoric, African American Rhetoric, and The Rhetoric of Humor.

Provost Timmerman has contributed to a number of books on the subject, most recently as co-author of “Public Speaking and Democratic Participation: Speaking, Listening and Deliberating in The Civic Realm.” Published in 2016, it addresses civic engagement at a time of increasing turbulence in the public realm.

• Ph.D., Purdue University
• M.Div. Denver Seminary
• B.A., U.C.L.A.

• African American Rhetoric
• Citizenship
• Classical Rhetoric
• Cultures and Tradition
• Legal Debate
• Political Debate
• Public Speaking
• Rhetoric of Humor

• The Development of Rhetoric in Ancient Greece
• Rhetoric and Democratic Practice
• Public Speaking as a Liberal Art
• Political Communication
• Religious Rhetoric

Public Speaking and Democratic Participation: Speaking, Listening, and Deliberating in the Civic Realm. Co-authored with Jennifer Abbott, Todd McDorman, and Jill Lamberton. Oxford University Press, 2016.

Humor, Race, and Rhetoric: “A Liberating Sabotage of the Past’s Hold on the Present.” (Co-authored with Grant Gussman and Daniel King). Rhetoric Review 31 (2012): 169-187.

Classical Greek Rhetorical Theory and the Disciplining of Discourse. (Co-authored with Edward Schiappa). Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Midway Between Slavery and Citizenship: Black Freedmen in White Protestant Sermons in the Immediate Post Civil War Period. Robert Ellison (Ed.), A New History of the Sermon, 19th Century. Liden: Brill. (2010).

Rhetoric and Democracy: Pedagogical and Political Practices. (Co-edited with Todd F. McDorman). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2008.