Dr. Hopper was born in North Carolina. After service in the United States Army, where he excelled in baseball, he attended Gardner-Webb College, received his Bachelor of Arts from Furman University, a Master of Arts from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, and a PhD from Florida State University.
As a Professor of Sociology, he instructed such classes as Penology and Deviant Behavior. As a member of the University’s graduate faculty, he served on the majority of Master of Criminal Justice degree committees.
In 2005, the Department of Legal Studies asked Dr. Hopper to be our first Guest of Honor at the First Legal Studies Honors Banquet. Today, the highest honor by the Department.
The criteria for awarding the scholarship is: Recipients will be full-time Legal Studies majors who are classified as seniors with at least a 3.75 GPA. A list of eligible students will be requested from the assistant to the dean of Applied Sciences. Recipients will be selected by the Department of Legal Studies faculty scholarship committee and approved by the chair of the department.