Free Summer Institutes for Social Studies Teachers: American Presidency (June 16, 2002 to June 21, 2002)


					Home > Free Summer Institutes > Previous Institutes > American Presidency (June 16, 2002 to June 21, 2002) The Origins and Development of the American Presidency Sunday, June 16, 2002 to Friday, June 21, 2002 Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio Readings and Audio Recordings \| Download Brochure (Adobe PDF) \| Download List of Readings and Schedule (Adobe PDF) Perhaps no institution of the American government has attracted as much attention as the presidency. Historians examine how the office has changed, and attempt to evaluate the contributions of individual presidents. Political scientists consider the institutional role of the chief executive, and how it interacts with bodies such as the Congress and the Supreme Court. Students of communications theory explore the rhetorical function of the presidency. All of these issues and more will be the focus of this institute. We will begin with an examination of the Founders and their expectations of the office, and will go forward from there to consider how it evolved in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Of course, we will look at how individual presidents such as Washington, Lincoln, the Roosevelts,Wilson, Lyndon Johnson, and Reagan affected the development of the office, but we will also deal with broad thematic issues such as the relationship between the president and Congress, his role in foreign policy, and his ability to set the national agenda. Finally, we will discuss the standards by which we might determine the "greatness" of presidents. Some of the books we intend to use for this institute include Robert A. Wilson’s edited collection Power and the Presidency, Michael P. Riccards' and James McGregor Burns' two-volume The Ferocious Engine of Democracy, and Presidential Greatness by Marc Landy and Sidney M. Milkis. For primary sources we will use Michael Nelson’s collection entitled The Evolving Presidency. Faculty: David Tucker is an Associate Professor of History at the Naval Post Graduate School. He has published on Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and is the author of Skirmishes at the Edge of Empire, and coeditor of Statecraft and Power. John E. Moser is Assistant Professor of History at Ashland University. He is the author of Twisting the Lion’s Tail: American Anglophobia between the World Wars and Presidents from Hoover Through Truman, 1929-1953: Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primary Documents.