Paul Harris joined the Department of Political Science as an adjunct faculty member in the fall of 2008. In 2010 he was tenured and promoted to associate professor and in 2015 he was promoted to the rank of professor. Harris has over two decades full-time teaching experience having taught for ten years (August 1998 – July 2008) at Augusta State University in Augusta, Georgia and for one year as a Friedrich Ebert Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster, Germany (September 1997 – July 1998).
Since returning to Auburn, Harris has taught a wide array of courses including American Government, special topics courses on immigration, refugee and asylum policy, Honors Lyceum, the interdisciplinary, team-taught Human Odyssey course, Honors Leadership & Scholarship, as well as Honors Book Clubs, to name a few. As a member of the graduate faculty, Harris also serves on doctoral dissertation committees.
Harris’ research specialization is comparative immigration policy where he has published widely (in English and German) on the subject. In 2009, his co-authored article “Dalton, Georgia’s Response to Immigration” was awarded the H. George Frederickson PA Times Best Article Award for the best PA Times article written in 2008. His current research examines the U.S. Army’s occupation of Germany following World War II and the myriad challenges faced by military government in reconstructing governmental institutions, building governmental capacity and advancing democratic ideals in the immediate postwar years.
Prior to becoming Department Chair, Harris served as associate director for the University Honors College. In this role, he mentored Auburn students in the application for national prestigious scholarships such as the Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, Truman, Mitchell, Goldwater, and Gates-Cambridge.
