Dr. Craig R. Smith is Chair of the Department of Film and Electronic Arts and professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Long Beach where he also directs the Center for First Amendment Studies.  During his 16 years at CSULB, he won the Distinguished Teaching, Distinguished Scholar, and Outstanding Professor Awards.  He has twice won the Robert O'Neil Award from the National Communication Association for outstanding scholarship on First Amendment issues.  He won the Outstanding Professor Award from the National Speakers Association in 2001.  At CSULB, he has served as chair of the departments of Communication Studies, Comparative Literature and Classics, and Journalism.  From 1996 through 1998, he served on the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. 

Dr.  Smith was born in San Diego in 1944, where he attended Sweetwater High School and served as its student body president.  He received his B.A. in History from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1966, as was awarded the Sproul Award.  He received his M.A. from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1967.  Awarded an NDEA Fellowship, he received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1969 and began a teaching career that has taken him to San Diego State University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Alabama in Birmingham where he founded and chaired the Communication Arts Division.  He has also served as a consultant to CBS News convention, election night and inaugural coverage from 1968 to 1984.  He has served as a full-time speechwriter for President Gerald Ford and Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca.  He was a consultant to President George H.  W. Bush and Governor Pete Wilson among many others.

He has written over fifty scholarly articles and fifteen books including most recently The Four Freedoms of the First Amendment (2004) and Daniel Webster and the Oratory of Civil Religion (2005).  Dr.  Smith resides in Long Beach, California.