Once, law professor Michael Glennon couldn’t help but doubt that his scholarly research on the Electoral College would have any contemporary relevance.

But his expertise on that very topic has now put him in the media storm swirling around the selection of the next president of the United States.

Since shortly after the election, Glennon has been quoted in, among other publications, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Globe, the Toronto Star and the Christian Science Monitor. He has been a guest on NBC’s Today show, ABC’s Nightline and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. And his invited opinion piece was published in the Washington Post on Nov. 19.

In its Dec. 4th issue, Legal Times of Washington, D.C., named Glennon among four law professors most frequently showing up in print or on the air in election-related coverage since Nov. 7.

Glennon has remained responsive to local and national media despite the time involved and some inconveniences–including a reporter’s call to his home at 8 a.m. Thanksgiving Day and a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call for the Today show appearance.

"Scholars, I think, have a responsibility to participate in public issues," he says. "We have research, insights and analysis to contribute. And it’s in keeping with the mission of a public university."

Glennon, who specializes in constitutional law, is author of When No Majority Rules: The Electoral College and Presidential Succes-sion. The foundational book explores historical precedents; looks at the pitfalls and unresolved issues of the system; examines the role of all groups involved, including political parties and the courts; and offers suggestions for reform.

CQ Press, which first published the 125-page book in 1993, is reprinting it and has made it available, in its entirety, at http://books.cqpress.com/nomajority/read.html.

A faculty member at the School of Law since 1986, Glennon has advised the governments of Albania and Azerbaijan on constitutional reform and testified before the World Court and numerous U.S. congressional committees. He served as legal counsel to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1977 to 1980.

Since distributing to the media two brief items about Glennon’s expertise, the campus News Service has helped direct some media inquiries his way. Many others have come, in a snowball effect, from earlier mentions in the national media.

The national television debut came Dec. 1 on the Today show, which sent a crew to Vail, Colo., where Glennon was presenting at an academic conference on Kosovo.

That experience offered its own lesson when, caught without a shirt and tie, he did the interview in a black sports jacket over a black turtleneck sweater. A law school employee, who saw Glennon on the show but didn’t notice the jacket he was wearing, kidded that the sweater suggested the professor was on the ski slopes, not at the podium.

What did he wear for the Nightline interview a week later? A jacket, shirt and tie.