Robbie Totten

Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs
Associate Professor of Politics & Global Studies
rtotten [at] aju.edu
(310) 440-1421
robbie totten headshot
Education

PhD, Political Science, University of California Los Angeles

M.A., Political Science, University of California Los Angeles

B.A., Political Science, Duke University

Dr. Robbie Totten
 
Associate Professor of Politics & Global Studies
 
Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs
American Jewish University
 
Dr. Robbie Totten is Associate Professor of Politics & Global Studies at American Jewish University (AJU), where he also serves as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs. Since 2018, he has led the University’s academic operations as Chief Academic Officer, working closely with faculty, deans, and academic administrators to guide the development and management of AJU’s for-credit and degree-granting programs, including those housed in the Jewish Learning Experience, the Masor School for Jewish Education and Leadership, and the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies.
 
Dr. Totten has played a key role in launching a growing suite of online academic programs and in reestablishing doctoral-level education at AJU—the first such programs offered since the 1970s. He has also helped lead a reimagining AJU’s undergraduate offerings around distinctive, Jewish-themed pathways, such as a B.A. completion degree in Jewish Early Childhood Education and online for-credit courses for high school students delivered in cohort models through their synagogues. Under his leadership, the Office of Academic Affairs has prioritized student-centered innovation and leadership development for future educators and professionals in the Jewish community.
 
He also serves as AJU’s Accreditation Liaison Officer (ALO) to the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC), and successfully led AJU through its 2023–2024 comprehensive review, resulting in an eight-year reaffirmation of accreditation.
Dr. Totten joined AJU in 2014 as Chair and Assistant Professor of the Politics & Global Studies Department and currently holds the rank of Associate Professor. Prior to his time at AJU, he held academic positions at UC Santa Barbara (Visiting Assistant Professor of International Relations), UCLA (Lecturer in Political Science), and UC San Diego (Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies).
 
His research has been published in academic journals and policy-oriented volumes, with expertise in higher education administration, international relations, U.S. immigration policy, and the American Founding. He recently authored an article for The Project on Allyship to Combat Antisemitism, offering historical insights on Jewish immigration advocacy and its relevance for today’s leaders. He also coauthored a chapter titled “A Pandemic Higher Education: Applying Lessons Learned at American Jewish University,” which focuses on takeaways for higher education administration drawn from AJU’s academic leadership experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the “publications” tab above, you can see his research at ResearchGate. 
As an educator, Professor Totten enjoys teaching courses on American Political Development, International Relations, U.S. foreign policy, terrorism and security studies, globalization, and immigration. He took pride in advising AJU’s successful undergraduate Model United Nations team, where students represented countries such as Brazil, Israel, Nigeria, Spain, and Sweden at conferences in San Francisco and Seattle.


 

Articles


“Navigating Allyship: Insights from Historical Jewish Immigration Advocacy” in The Project on Allyship to Combat Antisemitism, edited by Jeffry Herbst (June 2024): 1–25.
 

“Foreign Policy Interpretive Lenses and State Migration Law: Realism, Isolationism and Liberalism Thought, and U.S. Immigration Policy.” UC Davis Journal of International Law & Policy 24 (2018): 135-177. 

“Statecraft and Migration: A Research Note on American Strategies to Use Immigration in Foreign Policy from the Founding Era through the Early Twenty-First Century.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 28 (2017): 344-370. 

“International Relations, Material and Military Power, and United States Immigration Policy: American Strategies to Utilize Foreigners for Geopolitical Strength, 1607 to 2012.” Georgetown Immigration Law Journal 29 (Winter 2015): 205-256. 

“Epidemics, National Security, and US Immigration Policy.” Defense & Security Analysis 31 (Summer 2015): 1-14. 

“Security, Two Diplomacies, and the Formation of the U.S. Constitution: Review, Interpretation, and New Directions for the Study of the Early American Period.” Diplomatic History 36 (January 2012): 77-117.

“National Security and U.S. Immigration Policy, 1776-1790.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 39 (Summer 2008): 37-64.   

Summarized in JSTOR Daily: Where News Meets Its Scholarly Match, Livia Gershon, “Immigration and National Security in George Washington’s Day,” March 7, 2017.

Book Chapters

“Reintroducing John Witherspoon: Interstate Relations and Survival in Revolutionary America.” In Liberty and Security in an Anarchical World Volume II: Exit-Secession, Non-Westphalian Sovereignties, and Interstate Federalism, ed. Brandon Christensen (Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2024).
 
"Man Plans, God Laughs, the Joy of Learning, and War: Personal Stories and Reflections on Rabbi Dorff's Teachings from a Junior Academic." In Hesed V'Emet Nashaku: Loving Kindness and Truth Embraced The Life and Thought of Rabbi Elliot Dorff, eds., Michael Berenbaum and Michael B. Dorff (Paradise Valley, PA: The Wordsmithy LLC, 2023). 
 
"A Pandemic Higher Education: Applying Lessons Learned at American Jewish University." In Reflections on Post-Covid-19 Judaism: American Jewish University's Scholar Symposium, edited by Michael Berenbaum (Los Angeles, CA: American Jewish University, 2022).

“The Articles of Confederation State-System, Early American International Systems, and Antebellum Foreign Policy Analytical Frameworks.” In A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to Present, ed. Christopher Dietrich (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2020).

“Security and Immigration Policy: An Analytical Framework for Reform.” In Undecided Nation: Political Gridlock and the Immigration Crisis, eds. Erika de la Garza and Tony Payan (Springer International Publishing, 2014).

Dictionary/Encyclopedia Entries

“1924 National Origins Act.” In Race and Ethnicity in the United States: From Pre-contact to the Present, eds., Russell M. Lawson and Benjamin A. Lawson (ABC-CLIO, 2019).

“Immigration and Naturalization Service,” in Dictionary of American History, Supplement: America in the World, 1776 to the Present, ed., Edward Blum (Scribner’s, 2016).

Book Reviews

Review for Journal of American Studies, Vol. 48, November 2014, of Robert W.T. Martin, Government by Dissent: Protest, Resistance, and Radical Democratic Thought in the Early American Republic (NYU Press, 2013). 

Working Papers

2013. “Security and US Immigration Policy: Two American Immigration Security Traditions and an Analytical Framework of National Security and US Immigration Policy,” Working Paper in Immigration Reform: A System for the 21st Century, edited by Tony Payan and Erika de la Garza, Rice University Baker Institute for Public Policy, Latin America Initiative.

2012. “Epidemics, National Security, and U.S. Immigration Policy: Historical Policy Responses,” UC San Diego Center for Comparative Immigration Studies Working Paper Series, #187