Students who take his classes may be unaware that professor Kim Scipes is a published author.

Scipes of the Westville campus and vice chair of the PNW Faculty Senate, has four published books – including one just released at the end of October.

His most recent book “Building Global Labor Solidarity, Lessons from the Philippines, South Africa, Northwestern Europe, and the United States,” was published by Lexington Books.

His career as a book author began with the 1996 publication of  “KMU: Building Genuine Trade Unions in the Philippines, 1980-1994.” Beyond his books, Scipes has published 240 academic articles.

A behavioral science professor, Scipes believes his research and writing improve the class experience for students.

“I believe that doing the research for writing a book correlates with the classroom,” he said. “Students who take my classes are exposed to that extra knowledge.”

He has taken almost a dozen trips to the Philippines to study how workers create a union movement under a dictatorship, which he said allows his students to grasp a real sense of what the world is like.

Academia is a change for Scipes, who has been on the university’s faculty since 2004.

He served in the Marines, then he worked in a factory and was involved with a union for nine years. Somewhere along the way, Scipes decided that writing was his true calling. He said that he loves to share his love for writing while also trying to make sense of the world with his students.

Scipes teaches courses like “Developing Countries in a Globalizing World”, “Environment and Social Justice”, “Power, Social Control and the Media” and “People’s Mobilization and Social Power”.

And he’s already focused on this fifth book.

“Oh yeah!” he said. “I’m even negotiating at the current moment for my next book.”