Who is Donovan Bisbee from Jeopardy? The Professor Who Studies Presidents, Free Speech and the Supreme Court
Donovan Bisbee has spent much of his academic career studying a subject central to Jeopardy! itself: how people use language effectively.
The Portland-based professor is a communication scholar whose interests include rhetoric, persuasion, constitutional debate, free speech and public speaking.
His academic career has taken him from Washington state to Indiana, Illinois and New York before ultimately returning him to the Pacific Northwest.
Contents
Why Bisbee Studies Presidents and the Supreme Court
Bisbee’s scholarship examines a fascinating constitutional question: who gets to tell Americans what the Constitution means?
Although courts play a central role in constitutional interpretation, presidents have historically challenged judicial authority and advanced competing understandings of the Constitution.
Bisbee has examined these conflicts through the language used by presidents including Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
His work therefore sits at an intersection of history, law, politics and communication.
Years of Teaching Experience
Teaching has been just as important to Bisbee’s career as research.
During graduate school at the University of Illinois, he taught seven different undergraduate courses and became a peer leader for new instructors. He helped develop teaching materials, assisted with orientations and worked with the university’s Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning.
That center helped prepare more than 700 new teachers annually, giving Bisbee experience not only teaching students but also helping other instructors improve their classrooms.
He later directed oral communication courses at Baruch College and now teaches at Portland Community College.
A Highly Recognized Graduate Instructor
Bisbee repeatedly appeared on the University of Illinois’s List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent, with several appearances carrying an “outstanding” distinction reserved for particularly highly ranked instructors.
He earned a Graduate Teacher Certificate in 2014 and a Teacher-Scholar Certificate in 2016.
Those accomplishments reflect the dual emphasis that has defined his career: scholarship about rhetoric and practical instruction in how people communicate.
His Academic Interests Started Early
Bisbee’s interest in argument was already evident at Wabash College.
He studied Rhetoric and English, won a Moot Court advocacy award and conducted academic research while still an undergraduate. His selection to deliver a commencement speech in 2012 provided another opportunity to put rhetorical principles into practice.
Years later, his appearance on Jeopardy! introduces that background to a national television audience.
