Former Senator Hart fills endowed Wirth Chair
Former Senator Gary Hart accepted a two-year appointment beginning in January as the Wirth Chair in the Graduate School of Public Affairs.
A two-term U.S. senator (1975-87) and presidential candidate (1984 and 1988), Hart has spent 40 years in public service. He is well-known for his work in international law and business, and he has served as a strategic advisor to major U.S. corporations.
Since the inception of the Wirth Chair in the early 1990s, there have been several senior fellows, but Hart is the first person appointed to assume the Wirth Chair. Senior fellows serve as guest lecturers and write policy white papers.
Envisioned by former GSPA Dean Marshall Kaplan and another former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth, the mission of the Wirth Chair is to foster effective sustainable development strategies that will strive to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. A portion of Hart's work as the Wirth Chair will include development of and teaching a graduate seminar in fall ‘06.
Approximately 6-8 weeks ago, Hart was approached and encouraged to accept the Wirth Chair by GSPA Dean Kathleen Beatty and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Hart says it was appealing because he already had been considering pursuing a teaching role when the New York-based law firm he had been with announced it was closing its practice after 150 years.
In addition to his long career in public service, Hart resumed his own academic studies at Oxford University five years ago, earning the British equivalent of a PhD. He holds graduate law and divinity degrees from Yale. Hart’s academic experience includes a stint as a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Chatham Lecturer, and McCallum Memorial Lecturer at Oxford University, Global Fund Lecturer at Yale University and Regents Lecturer at the University of California.
Hart’s current pro bono service includes:
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Partnership for a Secure America (organizing committee)
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Energy Future Coalition (advisory board)
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America’s Agenda (chair)
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Security and Peace Institute (co-chair)
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Secure Colorado (co-chair)
The author of 16 books, Hart has penned two additional soon-to-be released works. Here are some of his published non-fiction works:
The Presidency of James Monroe (Times Books/Henry Holt, 2005);
God and Caesar in America: an essay on religion and politics (Fulcrum Publishing, 2005);
The Fourth Power: a new grand strategy for the United States in the 21st century (Oxford University Press, July, 2004);
Restoration of the Republic: the Jeffersonian Ideal in 21st Century America (2002), for which he received a D. Phil. degree from Oxford University;
The Minuteman: Restoring an Army of the People (1998);
The Patriot: An Exhortation to Liberate America from the Barbarians (1996);
The Good Fight: The Education of an American Reformer (a New York Times Notable Book) (1995);
Russia Shakes the World: The Second Russian Revolution (1991);
A New Democracy: new approaches to the challenges of the 1980's (1986);
America Can Win: The Case for Military Reform (1985);
Right from the Start: A Chronicle of the McGovern Campaign (1973);
Hart’s fiction titles:
The Strategies of Zeus (1985)
The Double Man (with former Senator and Secretary of Defense William Cohen, 1984)
Sins of the Fathers (1999)
I, Che Guevara (2000) (under the pseudonym John Blackthorn)