About
Guided by commitment to inclusive excellence and advancing the common good, the Academy of Presidential Scholars exists to leverage the cross-disciplinary strengths and synergy of a uniquely diverse group of Americans,
U. S. Presidential Scholars.
Working together to share and foster learning, to promote human understanding, and to offer nonpartisan thought leadership, Academy members endeavor to serve the public as the selecting Presidents hoped they would.
Activities of the Academy of Presidential Scholars
Serving Members
The Academy of Presidential Scholars serves its members in order to help them serve our communities and our country, here and globally. The Academy backs Presidential Scholars via the power of an organization’s infrastructure, tools, platforms, and forums for learning, creating, and sharing knowledge in service of the common good.
Serving Our Communities, Our Country, and Humanity
The Academy supports and propagates projects to foster lifelong learning, remove barriers to excellence, and serve the public. By creating ways for members to collaborate, the Academy facilitates sharing, co-constructing, disseminating, acquiring, and creating new knowledge. Additionally, as one of the forms of public service Lyndon Johnson specifically exhorted Presidential Scholars to engage in, the Academy will offer mentorship, advice, research, and training to assist members who want to run for local office.
Mission & Vision
Our Mission
Building towards a greater, more inclusive society that works for all of us, the Academy leverages the cross-disciplinary strengths and synergy of a uniquely diverse set of people, the U.S. Presidential Scholars, to work together—and with Distinguished Teachers and invited scholars, experts, and practitioners—to bridge differences, to open pathways, to think of fresh ways to approach problems, to find creative and practical solutions, and to inform and involve the public.
Our Commitment
The Academy of Presidential Scholars is committed to promoting productive collaborations of members to:
(a) create and disseminate knowledge of public benefit, render productive public service, and advance learning and education for all;
(b) to provide a variety of means to share the knowledge they produce to benefit the people;
(c) to offer curated and/or created resources that help United States Presidential Scholars and their collaborators to serve the public good, as the various appointing Presidents of the United States exhorted Presidential Scholars to do;
(d) when appropriate and desirable, to convene working groups from among the uniquely talented and diverse universe of United States Presidential Scholars to study and respond to policy issues facing contemporary society; and
(e) to sponsor, host and/or participate in events and activities that further education and lifelong learning among United States Presidential Scholars, their colleagues and affiliates, and the general public.
Our Vision
Service through Synergy
for our Communities, our Country, and Humanity
Our Strategy
The Academy was founded so that U.S. Presidential Scholars—throughout their lives and wherever they are—have a place to offer their talents and love-of-learning to create new knowledge for public benefit and to collaborate with interdisciplinary peers to address the public issues of our time. In the polarized political climate, in a nation with longstanding geographic schisms, we believe that capable, informed people, who can talk across their differences—as Presidential Scholars from all over the country and the world are able to do—just might be able to catalyze solutions to the many problems humanity faces right now.Board of Directors
Leonard Arvisu Cruz (Presidential Scholar in the Arts, TX, 1983) joined the Board of Directors in 2017.
Carla Cloninger Ketner (Presidential Scholar, NE, 1984) joined the Board of Directors as Clerk in 2019.
Eric Haocheng Li (Presidential Scholar, NM, 2014) is one of the three Founding Directors of the Academy and served as the Clerk through 2018.
Ellen Coy Mandell (Presidential Scholar, NM, 1967) is President of the Board of Directors and one of the three Founding Directors of the Academy.
Christine Théberge Rafal (Presidential Scholar, NH, 1984) is one of the three Founding Directors of the Academy and served as the Treasurer and (volunteer) Managing Director through 2020.
Julia Sass Rubin (Presidential Scholar, NJ, 1980) served on the Board of Directors in 2017-2018.