The Garfield Center for Public Leadership

The Garfield Center for Public Leadership prepares students to assume the responsibilities of public leadership by developing expertise in matters of public policy, foreign and domestic, grounded in Hiram’s traditional liberal arts education.

This learning process is enabled by bringing to the campus persons whose own public leadership has set them as examples to our community and nation. Working through the seminar series and other events, the Center strives to train the next generation of public servants and educate the community at large about relevant political issues. In the spirit of James A. Garfield, the Center helps both the political and the apolitical explore public service in a process replete with opportunities on and off campus.

PAST SCHOLAR TRIPS

One of the privileges of being a Garfield Scholar is the opportunity to travel to local and international destinations to engage in public policy research and activity.

James Thompson, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Political Science
Director of the James A. Garfield Center for Public Leadership

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Professor Thompson brings a background in International Relations and Political Philosophy to his role as Director of the GCPL. He is therefore committed to ensuring that the public policy topics addressed via GCPL programming span the full range of US policy-making — both foreign and domestic — and are subjected to in-depth analyses which go beyond “sound-bite” assessments and politically correct platitudes.