The William G Batchelder III Memorial Award for the Study of Place was the first award created by the Ciceronian Society.
William G Batchelder III passed away on February 12, 2022, after a long illness. Bill had been a legislator in Ohio from 1968 to 1998. After serving as a Common Pleas and State Appeals Court Judge, he returned to the Ohio House in 2006. In 2011, he realized his lifelong dream of becoming Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives. Throughout his long career in public life, Bill was motivated primarily by his love of place, particularly his love of Medina County and of the State of Ohio. When he was asked to run for Congress he declined, because he had no interest in leaving Ohio.
Bill was a financial supporter of the Ciceronian Society and even attended our meeting at Hope College in 2018. He revered our themes of Tradition, Place, and Things Divine, but his family believe it is particularly appropriate to honor his love of “Place.” For this reason, in collaboration with the Society the family has created the William G Batchelder III Memorial Award for the Study of Place.
Each year, a paper submitted to our annual conference focused on our Society’s theme of “Place,” broadly construed, will be chosen to receive the William G Batchelder Memorial Award for the Study of Place by the board or a select sub-committee thereof. The current award amount is $500.
To learn more about William Batchelder III and the Ciceronian Society’s emphasis on the study of Place, check out Episode 15 of The Sower Podcast:
Winners
2026
What is Localism and Why Does it Matter?
Co-Authored by Tyler Moore and Zachary German
Tyler Moore is an associate professor of law at the University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law. He is coediting (along with Zack German) the forthcoming “Cambridge Companion to Localism”—a volume analyzing the resources for localism in the history of political thought, various puzzles for localism, and localism’s “family relations” like agrarianism, federalism, subsidiarity, and nationalism. His other works have focused on the concept of legal interpretation and the process of judicial decision making, appearing in such publications as the American Journal of Jurisprudence, the FIU Law Review, and the Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues.
Before joining the academy, Tyler worked for Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, Judge Jonathan A. Kobes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and Judge John Gerrard of the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska. Tyler earned his PhD from the University of Notre Dame, a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center, and his BA from the University of Nebraska.
Tyler grew up on a farm in rural Nebraska. He and his family continue to believe in the importance of small-town life.
Zachary German is an assistant professor in the Institute of American Civics, part of the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research addresses questions of statesmanship, political culture and civic character, civic education, politics and religion, and constitutional design as they relate to American political and constitutional thought, as well as early modern thought. His book on Montesquieu and the American Founding is forthcoming with the University Press of Kansas, and he is currently coediting, with Tyler Moore, “The Cambridge Companion to Localism.”
German teaches courses on political thought, leadership, and constitutionalism, largely but not exclusively in the American context. He also contributes to various K-12 civic education initiatives, such as teacher workshops.
Prior to his position at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, German served as an assistant professor in the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State Univ. He received his B.A. in Political Science from Lee University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science, with subfields in Constitutional Studies and Political Theory, from the University of Notre Dame.
2025
“An Everyman’s Environmentalism: Love of Place as a Virtue”
Madeleine Austin lives in Pittsboro, NC with her husband, Joshua. She is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. When Madeleine is not playing her banjo, she works as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army Reserves. Check out her YouTube channel!
Drawing on the work of Wendell Berry and others, Madeleine’s winning paper focused on the kind of love – storge– which motivates people to care for creation in the particular place they are.
2024
“War Against The State: Daniel Patrick Moynihan and the Defense of Localism”
Jeffery Tyler Syck is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pikeville.
Tyler’s academic research focuses on the development of American democracy and the history of political ideologies. He is the editor of the forthcoming book “A Republic of Virtue: The Political Essays of John Quincy Adams” and is completing a second book manuscript entitled “The Untold Origins of American Democracy.” This second book describes how the political debates between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson forever altered the republic created by the American founders – leaving behind an increasingly majoritarian democracy. His essays and articles on politics, philosophy, and history have appeared in several public facing publications including Law and Liberty, Persuasion, and the Louisville Courier-Journal. Tyler’s academic work has recently been published in the journal Pietas.
A native of Pike County Kentucky, Tyler’s political thought and writing are strongly shaped by the culture of Appalachia. With their tightly knit communities, the mountains of Appalachia have instilled in him a love of all things local. As such his writing most often advocates for a rejuvenation of local democracy and a renaissance of rural culture.
Tyler received a Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Arts in Government from the University of Virginia. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Government and History from Morehead State University where he graduated with honors.
2023
“State vs. Community: Nisbet & the Post-Liberal Right”
Luke C. Sheahan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Duquesne University, a Non-Resident Scholar in the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (PRRUCS) at the University of Pennsylvania, and Editor of The University Bookman. He is author of Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism (2020) and editor of International Comparative Approaches to Free Speech and Open Inquiry (2022). Sheahan’s scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in Humanitas, The Political Science Reviewer, Perspectives on Political Science, and Studies in Burke and His Time and he has contributed chapters on Robert Nisbet, free speech, and CS Lewis to several edited volumes.
His popular writing has appeared in Law and Liberty, Real Clear Civics, National Affairs, and the Heritage Foundation’s First Principles series. In 2023, Sheahan coauthored an amicus brief in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Luke received a PhD and MA in political theory from the Catholic University of America and a B.S. in political science from the Honors College at Oregon State University.