Jeff Corey
Mentor: Ken Wald
College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

"I have known my mentor Dr. Wald for a long time. He never allows me to let up. He's made me realize that if you want to make a project great, you have to do many things at once and do them all well. It has been a great experience."

Senior Jeff Corey is a graduate of Oak Hall High School in Gainesville. A double major in political science and religion, Corey has won numerous academic awards, including a 1999 Nutter Scholarship and a 1998 Overseas Study Scholarship. He is also the president of the College Democrats and treasurer of Pi Sigma Alpha, the political science honor society.

Research Update: ver since I took Dr. Wald's Religion and Politics course in the fall semester of my sophmore year, I've been fascinated with the many ways that these two realms interact. After spending several years taking both religion and politics courses, the Univeristy Scholars Program has finally allowed me to investigate this interaction first-hand, through a case study of the 1997-1998 Florida Constitution Revision Commission. Every twenty years, the state of Florida sets up a Constitution Revision Commission to review the state's constitution and suggest revisions to the voters. Appointed to the 1997-1998 Commission were several individuals who were vocal Christian Right activists. Over the course of this school year, I will be using the tools of mail survey of the entire commission, personal interviews with commission members, and an analysis of the documentary record to see what kind of interaction took place between these activists and non-religiously motivated commission members. Midway through the fall semester I mailed out the survey portion of my project and I am currently in the process of receiving surveys and converting commissioner's comments into data. Even from these surveys and the commission members that I have already spoken to in the course of my research, I can tell that there is much to uncover when looking at how religion operates in the world of politics.

Photo by John Elderkin

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