Glenn Rainey
- Professor Emeritus
- Ph.D., the University of Georgia
- M.A., The University of Georgia
- B.A., Oglethrope University
Contact Information
- Department: Government
- Office: Miller 103
- Email: glenn.rainey@eku.edu
- Phone: 859-622-6498
- Web Page: http://people.eku.edu/raineyg
Bio
Professor Rainey is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. Through a quirk of history, he attended the same schools, learned from the same teachers, and even had the same doctor as Jane Rainey, but they never met before they both came to EKU. He graduated from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, and then attended the University of Georgia in Athens for his masters and PhD in Political Science. As he was finishing his PhD, he contacted a former UGA professor (then the chair of the EKU Department of Government) to learn about job openings in the state, and was invited to apply to EKU. He applied and got the position, and –with the exception of an 18 month stint with the Social Security Administration –he has been at EKU since. Dr. Rainey specializes in public management and human resources. Across all of his classes he stresses the importance of knowing and understanding the information and ideas provided in a class and using that information to think and draw conclusions. He likes to draw on practical experience working in government and with public managers, as well as current affairs, to provide specific and realistic examples and illustrations in his classes, and he likes to develop his own case studies and exercises to illustrate important points. In addition to Intro to American Government, he teaches human resources to graduates and undergraduates, public administration, graduate Public Organization and Management, and he is one of the directors of CACTUS. Periodically, he teaches special topics classes such as, most recently, a course on corporate corruption, and a course on the Presidency as viewed in the movies. Throughout his career, Professor Rainey has worked closely with public service managers and employees. As Director of the Institute for Government (now part of CARES) for eighteen years, Professor Rainey helped certify local government Human Resources Managers, administered association support programs for public sector benefits managers, city mangers, and government finance officers, and provided specialized training programs for many state and local government managers. In the late 1990s he managed a program that brought mid-career civil servants from the former Soviet bloc countries of Eastern Europe over to EKU to learn professional management and community development. He continues to work on human resources and public management issues. His most recent research interests have been official languages and government policy regarding multilingual countries such as Canada, and increasingly the United States; and he has studied and written about the use of the Citizens' Assembly model in teaching civic engagement and cooperation for students. Apart from EKU, Dr. Rainey likes to clog with his wife, Jane, is a fan of all types of music (except acid rock), and likes to bake. He says that the most important thing for students to do is develop their work ethic. While there are some fields of study that require natural aptitude, success in both academic study and life in general require first and foremost “determination to earn what you get and keep plugging away” at the problem until you get the outcome you want.