James D. Slack Retired professor
James D. Slack(PhD in Political Science, Miami; PhD in Christian Counseling, NCCA and Cornerstone;) is a professor emeritus. He held tenured full professorships at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University, the School of Business and Public Administration at California State University-Bakersfield, the Department of Government at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Robertson School of Government at Regent University, and the School of Public Policy and Administration at Jackson State University. In 2016 Professor Slack became an inaugural fellow in the Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation (ENACT) program within the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life at Brandeis University.
Author/editor or coauthor/coeditor of 14 books (including second printings of 1st editions, 2nd editions, and Kindle editions) and over 75 scholarly articles and book chapters, Dr. Slack’s ongoing research centers on the nexus between morality and the intimate consequences of death policy in the U.S. His books include Sleep the Sleep of the Innocent: Three Death Row Men and Moral Lessons of Matthew 25 Parables (Emeth Press, 2021), Abortion, Execution, and the Consequences of Taking Life (Transaction Publications, 2009, 2011, 2014; Taylor & Francis, 2017) and HIV/AIDS and the Public Workplace (University of Alabama Press, 1994, 1998). In 1993 he won the Laverne Burchfield Award for his writing on “The Public Administration of AIDS.” In 2023 he won the Editors’ Choice Award for SAGE Publications Business Cases (Healthcare Management) for case on cancer and the workplace, “Concerned Chats about Whatever It Is.”
Professor Slack is a pastoral counselor (crisis counseling) and has worked with the homeless and female victims of human trafficking. For 25 years, he has been involved in prison ministry and continues as a spiritual advisor to selected men on Alabama’s death row.
Dr. Slack was born in, and grew up nearby, Oberlin, Ohio. He is married (for over 40 years) to Janis Dunn Slack who is a retired administrator for the University of Alabama System. Dr. and Mrs. Slack are members of the Emmaus Movement, and he is a member of the Kairos prison ministry. They are blessed with a daughter and a son, three joyful grandchildren, a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law. The Slacks live in Hoover, Alabama.