Biography

Steven Porter was born in New York City in 1943 and throughout his life has continued to develop four streams of activity: education, political involvement, writing, and music.

He earned BS, MA, PhD, and PD degrees in fine arts and educational administration at leading university centers in the New York metropolitan area, and enjoyed a career in teaching and educational administration which lasted from 1967 to 2003.

Steve began his involvement in politics in the 1960s with Councilmanic races in New York City. Later, as a Graduate Fellow at Queens College, he worked for New York Senator Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Between 1975 and 1980, Dr. Porter wrote a weekly column for the Northport Journal on Long Island which commented upon the events of the day particularly as they affected America’s political, economic, and educational climate. In 1990, the Democratic Party asked him to run for the NY State Senate. When he moved to Pennsylvania, the Democrats again approached him to run for the United States Congress which he did in both 2004 and 2006. Since 2006, Dr. Porter has been an Independent.

His teaching career began in 1967 when he was appointed to the faculty of the Mannes College which is the Music Conservatory of the New University for Social Research. There he taught both Music Theory and The Philosophy of Education. Following the conferring of his PhD from the City University of New York and his PD degree from the C.W. Post Graduate School of Education, he was awarded research grants from the New York State Senate and the Carnegie Foundation. The publication of his research led to a proposal from the Binghamton City School District in 1984 to found a school of fine arts which was subsequently named for writer Rod Serling who had grown up in Binghamton. Dr. Porter managed the Rod Serling School for eighteen years until his appointment to Mercyhurst College in Erie, PA. He retired from active teaching in 2003 after a 36-year career.

In the late 1980s, Dr. Porter accompanied Binghamton Mayor Juanita Crabb to Russia with selected performers from his Rod Serling School as part of a diplomatic exchange of the Sister Cities International Program. The trip was filmed by CBS Binghamton affiliate WBNG, and the resultant documentary won the New York State Broadcaster’s Award for the Best Documentary of 1989. It was this exposure which led the Democrats of the area to ask him to run for the state senate.

Steve began writing and composing in 1970 and since then has published over 150 works for the concert and theatrical stage as well as twenty books ranging in topics from education to theatre and from fiction to political science and philosophy. His choral works continue to be performed many times each year around the world. Among his books are WISDOM’S PASSING, AMERICA’S DYING DEMOCRACY, and PRESERVING AMERICA (www.preservingamericathebook.com).

In 2010, Dr. Porter was invited by Matrix Media, Inc. to launch an internet program entitled Preserving America (after his book of the same name). The intent of the program is to discuss in a carefully researched, non-partisan way the political and social events of the nation and the world. The show can be heard via the internet on http://webtalkradio.net/shows/preserving-america/.

Steve and his wife, Rita, have been married for 38 years, and together they have devoted much of their marriage to the rescue and rehabilitation of abused and abandoned animals.