David Whitmire Waide, Jr. (“Whit”) is an instructor in the department. He teaches American Government, Constitutional Law, and various other law courses and serves as pre-law advisor. He is a licensed attorney who left full-time private practice as a commercial litigator to teach at Mississippi State.
Professor Waide is a cum laude graduate of Millsaps College and holds the Juris Doctor from Ole Miss Law School. He studied international law and business transactions at Cambridge University. He was awarded clerkships on both the Mississippi Supreme Court and Mississippi Court of Appeals and served as general counsel to the Mississippi Treasury Department.
During law school, Waide worked for U.S. Senator Thad Cochran in the Senator’s Northern Mississippi District Office in Oxford. Prior to law school, he worked for the Mississippi Secretary of State and was responsible for the production of the Mississippi Official and Statistical Register 1996 - 2000, a.k.a (“the Blue Book”).
Professor Waide has worked on numerous campaigns in various capacities and continues to serve as an advisor and speechwriter to candidates seeking office. A source of particular pride for him was his role in the successful campaign of Tate Reeves, Mississippi’s current state treasurer. Treasurer Reeves’s election at age 29 made him the youngest person ever elected to statewide office in Mississippi.
Waide is a recent graduate of the four-year Education for Ministry Program of the School of Theology, University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.
Professor Waide is licensed to practice law in all state and federal courts in Mississippi, as well as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Waide's textbook American Governance will be published in the spring by Kendall Hunt Publishers. His academic interests include comparative constitutional law, tribal governance and confederations, Mississippi legal and political history, and the Republic of Colombia.
Click here for a copy of Mr. Waide's vita.
Office: 199 Bowen Hall
Phone: 662-325-7860
His e-mail is WWaide@ps.msstate.edu