
Bradford P. Wilson, Ph.D.
Executive Director, James Madison Program
Princeton University
Bradford P. Wilson is Executive Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Lecturer in P... Read more
Bradford P. Wilson is Executive Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Lecturer in Politics, and Faculty Fellow of Butler College at Princeton University. His interests include American constitutional law, American political thought, and Western political thought. Wilson is the author of Enforcing the Fourth Amendment: A Jurisprudential History and co-editor of three books: American Political Parties & Constitutional Politics, Separation of Powers and Good Government, and The Supreme Court and American Constitutionalism. He is also the editor of The Constitutional Legacy of William H. Rehnquist, published in 2015 by West Academic Publishing. He has coedited a two-volume edition of The Political Writings of Alexander Hamilton, published by Cambridge University Press in November 2017. His writings have appeared in the Review of Metaphysics, the American Political Science Review, Academic Questions, and law reviews, and as chapters in edited volumes. Wilson has served as President of the Association for the Study of Free Institutions since 2006. He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Moscow State University and Moscow’s International Juridical Institute in 1994-95, and, from 1984 to 1987, served as Research Associate to two Chief Justices of the United States, Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist. From 1996 to 2004, he served as Acting President and then Executive Director of the National Association of Scholars and was Editor of the journal Academic Questions. He has been an editor of Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy since 1982. He received his B.A. from North Carolina State University, his M.A. from Northern Illinois University, and his Ph.D. in Politics from The Catholic University of America.Wilson and his wife Elle have three children.

Peter Wood, Ph.D.
President, National Association of Scholars
Peter Wood is an anthropologist and former provost. He was appointed president of the NAS in January 2009. Before that h... Read more
Peter Wood is an anthropologist and former provost. He was appointed president of the NAS in January 2009. Before that he served as NAS’s executive director (2007-2008), and as provost of The King’s College in New York City (2005-2007).
Dr. Wood was a tenured member of the Anthropology Department at Boston University, where he also held a variety of administrative positions, including associate provost and president’s chief of staff. He also oversaw the university’s scholarly publications and served as acting university librarian.
He received his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1987 from the University of Rochester. His dissertation, Quoting Heaven, examined the emergence of an American folk religion and pilgrimage center in rural Wisconsin. His undergraduate degree is from Haverford College (1975) and he has a master’s degree in library science from Rutgers University (1977).
Dr. Wood is the author of A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (Encounter Books, 2007) and of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003) which won the Caldwell Award for Leadership in Higher Education from the John Locke Foundation. These books extend his anthropological interest in examining emergent themes in modern American culture.
In addition to his scholarly work, Dr. Wood has published several hundred articles in print and online journals, such as Partisan Review and National Review Online, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Bernhardt Trout, Ph.D.
Molecular Engineering Laboratory, The Trout Research Group
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bernhardt L. Trout is the Raymond F. Baddour, ScD, (1949) Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the Novartis... Read more
Bernhardt L. Trout is the Raymond F. Baddour, ScD, (1949) Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing. He received his S.B. and S.M. degrees from MIT and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition, he performed post-doctoral research at the Max-Planck Institute.Trout’s research focuses on molecular engineering, specifically the development and application of both computational and experimental molecular-based methods to engineering pharmaceutical formulations and processes with unprecedented specificity. Since 1999, he has focused on molecular engineering for biopharmaceutical formulation, primarily liquid formulation, but also lyophilized formulation. A major aspect of his research focuses on developing both microscopic and macroscopic models to design stable formulations efficiently. In 2007, with several colleagues from MIT, he set up the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing, a $85 million partnership with the objective of transforming pharmaceutical manufacturing. In addition to Novartis, he has worked with many other pharmaceutical companies in research or consulting. He has published over 190 papers and has 22 patents issued or pending.

Carol Reynolds, Ph.D.
Music History (retired)
Southern Methodist University
Dr. Carol Reynolds weaves energy, humor, and history into everything she does. After a career as a professor at Southe... Read more
Dr. Carol Reynolds weaves energy, humor, and history into everything she does. After a career as a professor at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, “Professor Carol” and husband Hank moved to a ranch and began creating Fine Arts courses for students and adults. Her unprecedented Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, & Culture and Exploring America’s Musical Heritage reach across the world. Her new course History of Early Sacred Music will appear this summer, as well as online courses on Russian Music, Research Skills for Students Entering College, and a new series on American Music. A pianist and organist, she is a popular speaker for the Van Cliburn Series, The Dallas Symphony, opera companies, and museums. She works frequently in Eastern Europe and Russia as Study Leader for The Smithsonian.

Wilfred McClay, Ph.D.
G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty
The University of Oklahoma
Dr. McClay is the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma. He is the a... Read more
Dr. McClay is the G. T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America (University of North Carolina Press, 1994), which received the 1995 Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American intellectual history. He has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and was designated one of the nation’s outstanding educators in the Templeton Honor Rolls for 1997-1998.

Peter Kanelos, Ph.D.
President
St. John’s College
Panayiotis (Pano) Kanelos is the 24th President of St. John’s College, Annapolis. After earning degrees from Northwester... Read more
Panayiotis (Pano) Kanelos is the 24th President of St. John’s College, Annapolis. After earning degrees from Northwestern University (B.A.), Boston University (M.A.), and the University of Chicago (Ph.D.), he taught at Stanford University, the University of San Diego, and Loyola University Chicago.
He served most recently as dean of Christ College, the Honors College of Valparaiso University. An outspoken advocate for liberal education, he oversaw the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, comprising a network of more than 100 colleges and universities. Among the earliest participants in the Teach for America program, President Kanelos is as passionate about teaching as he is about writing and scholarship. He founded the Cropper Center for Creative Writing at the University of San Diego and is a noted Shakespeare scholar, having served as the resident Shakespearean in the Old Globe MFA Program and the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Shakespeare Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago.

Leon Kass, Ph.D.
Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus of Social Thought and in the College University of Chicago
Leon R. Kass, M.D., is the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at... Read more
Leon R. Kass, M.D., is the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago. He was the chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005. He has been engaged for more than 40 years with ethical and philosophical issues raised by biomedical advances and, more recently, with broader moral and cultural issues. His most recent book, What So Proudly We Hail: The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song, seeks to promote American identity, character and citizenship. Along with co-editors Amy Kass and Diana Schaub, Dr. Kass is presently working to expand this project by creating video discussions and curricula materials that demonstrate how short stories can be used to enhance our understanding of the Meaning of America.

David Hardy
Founding CEO, Boy’s Latin of Philadelphia
David is an established leader in Philadelphia’s education community and one of the few people who both “talks-the-talk”... Read more
David is an established leader in Philadelphia’s education community and one of the few people who both “talks-the-talk” and “walks-the-walk” in their dedication to students. Dave is the former CEO and Co-Founder of Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia charter school, which opened it’s doors in 2007. Boys’ Latin was PA’s first and only single-gender charter school and has a student body that is 98 percent African-American and 74 percent economically disadvantaged. In its first four graduating classes, Boys’ Latin sent 85 percent of its graduates to postsecondary institutions, 80 percent of which were 4-year colleges.
In addition to Boys’ Latin, Dave is a founding board member of the Philadelphia School Partnership and a former board member of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. He currently serves on the boards of the Center for Education Reform and the North Carolina Outward Bound School.
Dave lives in Philadelphia with his wife of 30 years, Zina Oliver-Hardy, and has two adult sons.

Timothy Fuller, Ph.D.
Political Science Department
Colorado College
Tim has taught at Colorado College since 1965. He served as Acting President from August 2001 to January 2002. Before th... Read more
Tim has taught at Colorado College since 1965. He served as Acting President from August 2001 to January 2002. Before that he was Dean of the Faculty and College from 1992 to 1999. He chaired the Political Science Department from 1985 to 1991. He received a Ph.D. (with distinction) from Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore) in 1971, an M.A. in 1965 and a B.A. from Kenyon College (with Honors) in 1961.
He has published many essays and edited books, including The Intellectual Legacy of Michael Oakeshott (2005), Reassessing the Liberal State (2001), The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education (2000), and most recently contributed to Political Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, Authors and Arguments (2011). He was co-editor with Shirley Letwin of a multi-volume series for the Yale University Press, Selected Works of Michael Oakeshott, and was editor of the International Hobbes Association Newsletter. Most recently he edited Machiavelli’s Legacy, “The Prince” After 500 Years (2015). He has lectured at forty-four colleges and universities in America, and in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal. He was a Distinguished Academic Visitor to the Government Department of The London School of Economics and the Bell Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Tulsa. He teaches political theory.

Barbara R. Davidson
President of StandardsWork, Inc.
Executive Director, Knowledge Matters Campaign
Barbara is an education industry executive with deep, hands-on experience in K-12 education policy, practice, and operat... Read more
Barbara is an education industry executive with deep, hands-on experience in K-12 education policy, practice, and operations. She served as President of StandardsWork from 2003-2009 and has recently returned to its helm as part of an organizational commitment to advancing the vital role of strong curriculum, the importance of deep content knowledge in students, and the impact that evidence-based instructional practices can provide teachers.
Barbara’s talent is in leading collaborative work. During her seven years away from StandardsWork she served as Senior Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at the National Council for Teacher Quality (NCTQ) and Deputy Director of Great Minds (formerly Common Core, Inc.). At NCTQ she led the teacher preparation group in rethinking both its district-facing work and its biennial review of teacher preparation programs at over 1400 colleges and universities. At Great Minds, a non-profit organization that creates content-rich curriculum in the full range of the liberal arts and sciences, Barbara ran operations during a period of dramatic growth due to the successful authorship and market launch of Eureka Math (aka EngageNY Math). In addition to overseeing the research and development of a compatible English language arts product, Barbara spearheaded the design, development, and high quality execution of Great Mind’s online and site-based professional development offerings.
Barbara started her career in education as a teacher of learning disabled students in Norfolk, Virginia and has trained teachers on behalf of two educational publishing companies. She has served in key leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Education under two secretaries of education: Bill Bennett and Lamar Alexander.
During Barbara’s leadership at StandardsWork, the organization executed many high-profile projects on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education, the National Assessment Governing Board, the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, the Indiana Higher Education Commission, the District of Columbia Public Schools, National Endowment for the Humanities, Texas Education Agency, the Center for Education Reform, and others.
A fearless champion of classroom-based education reform generally, and content-rich curriculum in particular, Barbara is a tactical leader with a keen ability to translate strategic initiatives into desired results. Her degree is in elementary and special education from the University of Iowa. She lives in Barnesville, MD with her son, husband, two Arabian horses, and dog Eevee.

Daniel Coupland, Ph.D.
Dean of Faculty
Hillsdale College
I’ve been teaching at Hillsdale since 2006, and I strive to communicate what it means to be genuinely human. I have the... Read more
During Christmas break of my junior year in college, I had a professional crisis. I was almost finished with my undergraduate experience, and I didn’t know what I was going to do for a living.
I was curious about a lot of things, and I could see myself doing any number of jobs. My father suggested that I take an Education class because he thought I would be a good teacher. I thought he was wrong, but I took the class anyway.
The course itself was dull, but the instructor required all the students spend ten hours observing in a real classroom. I began the observation hours still convinced that teaching was not for me, but by the end of the two days of observing, I was hooked. In fact, I was convinced that I would be a teacher for the rest of my life.
I’ve been teaching at Hillsdale since 2006, and I strive to communicate what it means to be genuinely human. I have the opportunity and freedom to do what all professors should do: teach. As a friend once told me, good teaching is the overflow of a full life. In my classes, I therefore try to fill my students’ lives with as much goodness, truth, and beauty as I can.
The undergraduate years are over in a flash, so in the Education program at Hillsdale we offer students the ability to spend four years studying the best of what has been thought, said, and written.

Paul Carrese, Ph.D.
Founding Director, School for Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Arizona State University
Paul Carrese is the founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State Univer... Read more
Paul Carrese is the founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. For nearly two decades he was a professor of political science at the United States Air Force Academy. He is author of “The Cloaking of Power: Montesquieu, Blackstone, and the Rise of Judicial Activism,” and co-editor of three other books – on George Washington, constitutionalism, and American grand strategy. His most recent book is “Democracy in Moderation: Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and Sustainable Liberalism.” He has held fellowships at Harvard University; the University of Delhi (as a Fulbright fellow); and the James Madison Program, Politics Department, Princeton University.

John Briggs, Ph.D.
Department of English
University of California-Riverside
John Briggs (B.A. Harvard; Ph.D. University of Chicago) is the author of Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature (winne... Read more
John Briggs (B.A. Harvard; Ph.D. University of Chicago) is the author of Francis Bacon and the Rhetoric of Nature (winner of the Thomas J. Wilson Award from Harvard University Press, 1988) and Lincoln’s Speeches Reconsidered (Johns Hopkins, 2005). In addition to courses in Renaissance literature, Shakespeare, and C. S. Lewis, he teaches the history and theory of rhetoric and composition, as well as a course on Lincoln’s speeches. He has published articles and book chapters on Shakespearean catharsis; the political underplot of Timon of Athens; defective scientific forms of proof in Othello; Bacon, science, and religion; Lincoln and Shakespeare; Frederick Douglass and Macbeth, the neglected role of literature in the teaching of composition; Peter Elbow and the pedagogical paradox; and the idea of magic in the rhetorical theory and practice of Elbow and Kenneth Burke. An essay on ideas as phenomena in the work of Bacon and E. O. Wilson has appeared in Francis Bacon and the Refiguring of Modern Thought (Ashgate, 2005). Recent projects include a study of catharsis and poetic justice in Romeo and Juliet and Lincoln’s reading of tyranny in Macbeth. Briggs is currently serving as the Director of the University Writing Program. He was the winner of the 1995-96 Faculty Teaching Award. He has been chair of the CHASS Executive Committee and a consultant to the College Board. Currently, he is on the editorial board of Literary Imagination.

David Bobb, Ph.D.
President, Bill of Rights Institute
David joined the Bill of Rights Institute as president in 2013 and has worked for twenty years at the intersection of ci... Read more
David joined the Bill of Rights Institute as president in 2013 and has worked for twenty years at the intersection of civic engagement and education reform. Having taught courses in American politics and public policy in the history and political science departments of Boston College and Hillsdale College, he was also founding director of a national civic education program for high school teachers at Hillsdale College, as well as the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Studies, in Washington, D.C. David has designed online educational programs used by more than half a million participants and is a nationally-recognized proponent of civic education that engages the hearts and minds of students. Author of Humility: An Unlikely Biography of America’s Greatest Virtue (HarperCollins, 2013), David has written for the Wall Street Journal and Fast Company, among many other publications. He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Boston College, where he received fellowships from the Pew, Earhart, and Bradley Foundations.

Philip Bess, Ph.D.
Doctor of Humane Letters
University of Notre Dame
Professor Philip Bess teaches graduate urban design and theory, with a particular interest in Catholic and classical hum... Read more
Professor Philip Bess teaches graduate urban design and theory, with a particular interest in Catholic and classical humanist intellectual and artistic traditions in the context of modern American life and the contemporary culture of architecture and urban design. From 2004 to 2014 he was the School of Architecture’s Director of Graduate Studies.
Under his direction between 2006 and 2018, the Notre Dame graduate urban design studio completed master plan proposals for Lewis University, IL (2006), Cooperstown, NY (2007), Northampton, MA (2008), Ventura, CA (2009), Skaneateles, NY (2010), Lafayette, LA (2013, under Visiting Critics John and Jennifer Griffin), Providence, RI (2016), and Tulsa, OK (2017). In the Fall of 2011, the graduate urban design studio began an ongoing, episodically funded, multi-year project called After Burnham: The Notre Dame Plan of Chicago 2109, which envisions metropolitan Chicago at the bicentennial of the 1909 Plan of Chicago, and is devoted to exploring whether and how Notre Dame’s professed classical humanist ideals might be applied at the scale of the modern metropolis. The 2011 and and 2012 Chicago 2109 studios explored general City of Chicago and northeast Illinois regional issues, with subsequent studio proposals for LaFox, IL (2014), Zion, IL (2015), and south side Chicago’s Midway Plaisance (2018).
The work of the graduate urban design studio has received regional, national, and international recognition, from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and the International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU):
- 2011: CNU Charter Award Academic Grand Prize, for Skaneateles, NY
- 2013: CNU Illinois Chapter Award for Best Regional Plan, for Chicago 2109
- 2014: CNU Special Academic Charter Award, for Chicago 2109
- 2015: CNU Charter Student Award of Merit, for Lafayette, LA (John and Jennifer Griffin, Studio Critics)
- 2015: CNU Charter Student Award of Merit, for LaFox, IL
- 2016: INTBAU World Congress Excellence Award in Urban Design, for Chicago 2109
- 2017: CNU Charter Student Award of Merit, for Providence, RI
- 2019: CNU Charter Award Academic Grand Prize, for the Chicago Midway Plaisance
In his youth a member in good standing of both the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the United Steelworkers union, Professor Bess has been a cab driver in both Boston and Chicago. Before coming to Notre Dame in 2004 he lived and worked in Chicago, and at various times taught architecture and urban design at Notre Dame, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Michigan, Miami of Ohio, Calvin College, and Andrews University. From 1987-88 he was the director and principal designer of the NEA-and-Graham-Foundation-funded Urban Baseball Park Design Project of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR); and in Boston in August 2000 he directed and coordinated the ultimately successful “Save Fenway Park!” design charrette, from which came contemporary Fenway’s famous “Monster Seats” and other prominent renovations.
Professor Bess lectures widely, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: City Baseball Magic: Plain Talk and Uncommon Sense About Cities and Baseball Parks (Knothole, 1991); Inland Architecture: Subterranean Essays on Moral Order and Formal Order in Chicago (Interalia / Design, 2000); and Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred (ISI, 2006). He holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Whittier College, a graduate degree in church history from Harvard, and a graduate degree in architecture from the University of Virginia. In 2013-14 he was a William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life in Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions; in May 2015 he received the degree Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa from The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California; and he is a Fall 2019 Fellow of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.

Peter Berkowitz, Ph.D.
Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a 2017 w... Read more
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a 2017 winner of the Bradley Prize. At Hoover, he is a member of the Military History/Contemporary Conflict Working Group. In addition, he serves as dean of students for the Hertog Political Studies Program and for The Public Interest Fellowship, and teaches for the Tikvah Fund in the United States and in Israel.
He studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in the United States, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.
He is the author of Constitutional Conservatism: Liberty, Self-Government, and Political Moderation (Hoover Institution Press, 2013); Israel and the Struggle over the International Laws of War (Hoover Institution Press, 2012); Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 1999); and Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist (Harvard University Press, 1995).
He is the editor of seven collections of essays on political ideas and institutions published by the Hoover Institution: Renewing the American Constitutional Tradition (2014); Future Challenges in National Security and Law (2010); The Future of American Intelligence (2005); Terrorism, the Laws of War, and the Constitution: Debating the Enemy Combatant Cases (2005); Varieties of Conservatism in America (2004); Varieties of Progressivism in America (2004); and Never a Matter of Indifference: Sustaining Virtue in a Free Republic (2003).
He is a contributor at RealClearPolitics, and has written hundreds of articles,essays and reviews on a range of subjects for a variety of publications, including The American Interest, American Political Science Review, The Atlantic, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Claremont Review of Books, Commentary, First Things, Forbes.com, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, London Review of Books, National Journal, National Review, The New Criterion, The New Republic, Policy Review, Politico, The Public Interest, The Times Literary Supplement, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, The Wilson Quarterly, and the Yale Law Journal.

Mark Bauerlein, Ph.D.
Department of English
Emory University
Mark Bauerlein earned his doctorate in English at UCLA in 1988. He has taught at Emory since 1989, with a two-and-a-half... Read more
Mark Bauerlein earned his doctorate in English at UCLA in 1988. He has taught at Emory since 1989, with a two-and-a-half year break in 2003-05 to serve as the Director, Office of Research and Analysis, at the National Endowment for the Arts.
Apart from his scholarly work, he publishes in popular periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, TLS, and Chronicle of Higher Education. His latest book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future; Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30 was published in May 2008. He recently co-edited a collection of essays entitled The State of the American Mind: 16 Leading Critics on the New Anti-Intellectualism, published in 2015.

Owen Anderson
Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Arizona State University’s New College
Owen Anderson was the William E. Simon research fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University and a visiti... Read more
Owen Anderson was the William E. Simon research fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University and a visiting scholar at Princeton Seminary in 2013-2014. Anderson’s main areas of research are natural theology, natural law, and religion in the Modern Age. He has served as faculty senate president and program lead. Owen has published seven books including The Declaration of Independence and God (2015) and The Natural Moral Law (2013) with Cambridge University Press. His most recent book is The Cambridge Companion to the First Amendment and Religious Liberty (2020). He regularly teaches courses in Philosophy of Religion, Introduction to Philosophy, Applied Ethics, World Religions, and Western Religious Traditions and Religion in America.

Jeffrey S. Lehman, Ph.D.
Education Department
Hillsdale College
Dr. Jeffrey Lehman, identifies Augustine as one of his favorite authors, because Augustine “focuses upon the most import... Read more
Dr. Jeffrey Lehman, identifies Augustine as one of his favorite authors, because Augustine “focuses upon the most important things for our journey in this life—pursuing the truth and embracing love.” And Lehman believes that the liberal arts help students to approach those most important things.
Lehman heard about Hillsdale years ago, when he attended several CCAs and talked to friends who worked at Hillsdale, including Dr. Stephen Smith of the English Department. When he heard about an education position opening up, it “seemed like a good fit, given my experience teaching the liberal arts and my commitment to classical education through the great books.” Upon being hired to teach at Hillsdale, Lehman, his wife Jennifer, and their four children packed up and moved from southern California—where he had taught at both Biola University and Thomas Aquinas College—to Michigan. While some pity him for leaving California for the Midwest, Lehman says, “I love the seasons and I love the way Midwesterners approach life—it is very personal, very family-oriented.”
This semester, Lehman is teaching three courses. He coordinates the Education Department’s liberal arts teacher apprenticeship program, in which Hillsdale students observe and teach classes at Hillsdale Academy or at other classical schools around the country. He is also teaching “Logic and Rhetoric” and “Quadrivium,” a course on the role of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy in a liberal education. He wants to teach his students the foundational role of these classical liberal arts and how they are the starting point for a liberal education. But, as he is the first to admit, “they are just the beginning.”

Matthew Post, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean of Braniff Graduate School, Director of Classical Education Graduate Program
University of Dallas
Matthew Post is Assistant Professor of Humanities, Graduate Director of Classical Education and Assistant Dean of the Br... Read more
Matthew Post is Assistant Professor of Humanities, Graduate Director of Classical Education and Assistant Dean of the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts at the University of Dallas. He has spent his career teaching the Great Books of the Western tradition, having worked in Canada, Japan and Slovakia in addition to the U.S. In the Slovak Republic, he had the privilege to build a Great Books program at a school whose mission was to renew classical education after decades of communist rule had obscured the country’s history and traditions. His research explores how best to understand and promote virtue, service and leadership through education. His academic interests include the ancient Greeks, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, the Enlightenment, the American Founding and German Idealism.

Gregory Roper, Ph.D.
English Department
University of Dallas
Greg Roper, Ph.D. has interests in Middle English literature, rhetoric and composition, literary theory, and pedagogy. H... Read more
Greg Roper, Ph.D. has interests in Middle English literature, rhetoric and composition, literary theory, and pedagogy. He has published essays on Medieval penitential manuals and their influence on late Medieval literature, on the Canterbury Tales, and on teaching survey courses and literary theory. He has recently published a book using ancient and medieval notions of imitation to help students write better, entitled The Writer’s Workshop.

Adam Seagrave
Associate Professor, School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Arizona State University
Seagrave’s teaching and research focus on American political principles, including both their application in American po... Read more
Seagrave’s teaching and research focus on American political principles, including both their application in American political history and their antecedents in intellectual history. He is the author of The Foundations of Natural Morality: On the Compatibility of Natural Rights and the Natural Law (University of Chicago Press, 2014) and The Accessible Federalist (Hackett Publishing Co., 2017), as well as editor of Liberty and Equality: The American Conversation (University of Kansas Press, 2015). He holds a doctorate from the University of Notre Dame.

Brian Williams
Dean of the College of Arts & Humanities
Templeton Honors College at Eastern University
Brian Williams holds a D.Phil and M.Phil from the University of Oxford, where he was a Clarendon Scholar; and an M.A. an... Read more
Brian Williams holds a D.Phil and M.Phil from the University of Oxford, where he was a Clarendon Scholar; and an M.A. and Th.M. from Regent College (Vancouver, Canada). His current research examines the tradition of Didascalic Christian Humanism, focusing on the works of Hugh of St. Victor, Philip Melanchthon, and John Henry Newman. Dr. Williams’ broader academic interests include virtue ethics, the history of education, religious political theology, Dante Alighieri’s Commedia, and the intersection of moral theology and social anthropology. He is the co-editor of Everyday Ethics: Moral Theology and the Practices of Ordinary Life (Georgetown University Press, 2019).
Dr. Williams is a board member of the Philadelphia Commons Institute, and is an Academic Fellow of the Alcuin Fellowship and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Classical Education. He also taught Theology, Philosophy, and Literature at Cair Paravel Latin School (Topeka, KS); led Quo Vadis Travel Seminars in Europe and the United States; and has experience in several fields of business.