Dr. Richard E. Vatz is professor of Rhetoric and Communication at Towson University. He won Towson University’s "President’s Award for Distinguished Service," the university’s highest honor, in 2004. He won Towson University’s first “Faculty Member of the Year Award, 2009-2010; he was the first faculty winner of the “Towson Elite” award; he won the 2002 "Teacher of the Year Award" from the Student Government of Towson; and he won 4 Outstanding Teaching Awards at Towson in the five years they were awarded in the 1970s and 1980s. He is an Eastern Communication Association Teaching Fellow.  He was the 1994 winner of the Thomas Szasz Award for dedication to civil liberties.  He has written a book on the work of Dr. Szasz and hundreds of articles and/or reviews on political persuasion and psychiatry in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, Western Speech Communication, Philosophy And Rhetoric, The New England Journal oMedicine, Journal of The American Medical Association, Law And Society Review, The Journal of Existential Psychology and Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and in other journals as well.  He has appeared nationally to discuss issues on rhetoric and psychiatry on CNN, "The Phil Donahue Show," "Larry King Live" and William Buckley's "Firing Line." He has provided political commentary for local and national television and radio, including Fox television, CBS Radio, ABC Radio and Maryland Public Television.