Rate My Professor William Taylor

Dr. William A. Taylor is Department Chair and Professor of Global Security Studies in the Department of Security Studies and Criminal Justice at Angelo State University, where he holds the Lee Drain Endowed University Professorship since 2019. He earned a B.S. in History with honors and distinction from the United States Naval Academy in 1998, an M.A. in History with thesis from the University of Maryland College Park in 1998, an M.A. in National Security Studies with honors from Georgetown University in 2003, an M.Phil. in History from George Washington University in 2009, and a Ph.D. in History from George Washington University in 2010. A former U.S. Marine Corps officer, Taylor joined Angelo State University in 2011 as Assistant Professor of Global Security Studies, became Associate Professor in 2017, full Professor in 2022, and Department Chair in 2023. He previously served as interim department chair in 2016-2017 and 2019.

Taylor's academic interests encompass civil-military relations, grand strategy, globalization, peacekeeping and stability operations, transnational issues, security issues in Africa, and world cultures. He is the author or editor of multiple books, including The Advent of the All-Volunteer Force: Protecting Free Society (Routledge, 2023), The All-Volunteer Force: Fifty Years of Service (editor, University Press of Kansas, 2023), Peace, War, and Partnership: Congress and the Military since World War II (editor, Texas A&M University Press, 2023), George C. Marshall and the Early Cold War: Policy, Politics, and Society (editor, University of Oklahoma Press, 2020), Contemporary Security Issues in Africa (Praeger, 2019), Military Service and American Democracy: From World War II to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (University Press of Kansas, 2016), and Every Citizen a Soldier: The Campaign for Universal Military Training after World War II (Texas A&M University Press, 2014). His books have earned the Association for Documentary Editing Sharon Ritenour Stevens Prize (2021) and Crader Family Book Prize Honorable Mention (2015), with one selected as required reading for first-year cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Taylor is founding series editor for Studies in Civil-Military Relations (University Press of Kansas, fourteen volumes published) and Studies in Marine Corps History and Amphibious Warfare (Naval Institute Press, three volumes). He has received nineteen national research grants from the Gerald R. Ford, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, and John F. Kennedy foundations, among others. At Angelo State University, he is the first faculty member to win President’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching (2021), Research/Creative Endeavor (2016), and Leadership/Service (2019), and he holds Texas Tech University System Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Teaching Award (2022) and Distinguished Research Award (2016).