Conservative Thought and Policy Program

Visiting Scholars in Conservative Thought and Policy (VSCTP) come from academic, military, media or policy communities. They teach a load commensurate with their field and offer public lectures, public seminars and informal discussions with students and the public. While on campus, the visiting scholar brings in prominent members of the conservative intellectual community from around the country for a day at CU Boulder.

Each year, the Benson Center launches a national search for a Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy. Alan S. Kahan has been named the 2021-22 Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy and will return for fall semester 2022. 

Applications for the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for academic year 2023/24 are now being accepted. The Center seeks highly visible individuals who are deeply engaged in either the analytical scholarship or practice of conservative thought and policymaking, or both. Thus, applications will be welcome from the academic, policy, military, and media communities, among others. The term of the appointment is variable, with a minimum of two to a maximum of four semesters. The position begins in August of the academic year. Visiting Scholars continue a tradition of fostering intellectual diversity on the Boulder campus through the Benson Center. Interested applicants should apply through the CU Boulder job portal. Applications received by November 21 will be given full considerations. Applications will be accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

 

Past Visiting Scholars in Conservative Thought and Policy

Steven Hayward

Steven Hayward

Steven Hayward was the First VIsiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy. He was appointed for the 2013-2014 academic year. Biography: Steven Hayward holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Claremont Graduate School. He has been the F.K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he was principal author...
Bradley J. Birzer

Bradley J. Birzer

Bradley J. Birzer was the VIsiting Conservative Scholar for the 2014-15 academic year. He is the co-founder of The Imaginative Conservative and Russell Amos Kirk Chair in History at Hillsdale College . Dr. Birzer is author of American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll , Sanctifying the World: the Augustinian...
Brian Domitrovic

Brian Domitrovic

The University of Colorado Boulder appointed Brian Domitrovic as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the 2015-16 academic year. He is the third person to be appointed to the position. Domitrovic holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, where he also did graduate work in the...
Francis Beckwith

Francis Beckwith

Francis Beckwith served as the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the 2016-17 academic year. He is the fourth person to hold the position. Beckwith earned a PhD in philosophy from Fordham University and a master of juridical studies from the Washington University School of Law in St...

Robert Kaufman

Robert Kaufman

Robert G. Kaufman, a political scientist specializing in American foreign policy, has been named the 2017-18 Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at CU Boulder. He is the fifth person to hold the position.

stephen presser

Stephen Presser

Stephen B Presser was the visiting conservative thought and policy scholar for the 2018-2019 academic year. Presser is a leading American legal historian and expert on shareholder liability for corporate debts. He is frequently an invited witness before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on issues of...
William B. Allen

William B. Allen

William B. Allen was the 2018-19 CWCTP Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy and was a Senior Scholar in Residence for 2019-20. Allen is the emeritus dean, James Madison College and emeritus professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University. In fall 2019, Allen taught CWCV-4000-001 Foundations of Western...
colleen sheehan

Colleen Sheehan

Colleen A. Sheehan was the Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the 2019-20 academic year. At that time, Sheehan was professor of political science at Villanova University and director of the Ryan Center for Free Institutions and the Public Good. Sheehan has served in the Pennsylvania House of...
Benson Center

John Eastman

John Eastman was the VIsiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy for the 2020-21 academic year.
Alan Kahan

Alan S. Kahan

Alan S. Kahan was the visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy for the 2021-22 academic year and is returning for the 2022-23 fall term . Kahan, a historian, political theorist and author, is professor of British Civilization at the Université de Paris-Saclay. Kahan is the author of Aristocratic Liberalism: The Social and Political Thought of Jacob Burckhardt, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville (Oxford, 1992); Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century...
alan.kahan@colorado.edu