Our Mission

Civic Education, Liberal Education, Intellectual Diversity

The George Washington Forum on American Ideas, Politics, and Institutions teaches America’s foundational principles in their Western intellectual, political, and institutional contexts. It is grounded on the idea that students facing an increasingly globalized world need to understand what characterizes and distinguishes the nation in which they live and the civilization from which it emerged. The Forum helps students become enlightened citizens in a liberal democracy whose roots run deep in Western civilization, but whose ideals and interests transcend the West.

The Washington Forum pursues its mission in at least three interconnected ways.

• It directs and encourages the efforts to teach Ohio University undergraduates the history of America and its location within the Western tradition.
• It encourages traditional scholarship on important themes in American and Western history through themed conferences, public lectures, and publications.
• It provides scholarship funding to Ohio University undergraduates interested in free societies and what makes them possible.

The Washington Forum is a participant in The Jack Miller Center-Veritas Fund for Higher Education Initiative. The Forum’s first year of operation was academic year 2009–10, and its future success depends on the generous support of foundations and private individuals who share its commitment to civic education and intellectual diversity. Thank you for your interest in the Forum, and we appreciate all who support our efforts.

Robert G. Ingram
Associate Professor of History
Director of the George Washington Forum

GWF Staff

Robert G. Ingram

washingtonforum@ohio.edu

Robert Ingram is an historian at Ohio University, where he teaches courses in early modern British and European religious, political, and intellectual history. Born and brought up in Ruston, Louisiana, he did his undergraduate work at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and his doctoral work at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. Robert is the founding director of the George Washington Forum on American Ideas, Politics, and Institutions, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the President of the Southern Conference on British Studies.

Dr. Christopher Barker

barkch@gmail.com

Christopher Barker, a political theorist, is joining the George Washington Forum as the Thomas W. Smith Postdoctoral Fellow in U.S. Legal and Constitutional History, 2012-2014. He comes to Ohio University after holding positions at Harvard University and Boston College. He completed his dissertation at Claremont Graduate University, where he wrote on John Stuart Mill’s account of the problem of authority in democracy. His current research assesses the way in which liberal democratic political theorists conceive of the nexus between representation, religious belief, and scientific authority. He is presently working on a book manuscript exploring the way in which political representatives, religious believers, and scientific experts have (and have failed to) become the three authoritative voices of liberal regimes.