Exploring Liberty

May 25-31 ● Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC

Trevor Burrus

Law, Cato Institute
Trevor Burrus is a research fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. His research interests include constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political philosophy, and legal history. His work has appeared in the Vermont Law Review, the Syracuse Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, the Albany Law Review, the Jurist, as well as the Washington Times,Huffington Post, the Daily Caller, USA Today, and other popular publications. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Tawni Ferrarini

Economics, Northern Michigan University

Tawni H. Ferrarini is the Sam M. Cohodas Professor of the Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship at Northern Michigan University (NMU).  Her teaching, research and service to the profession focus on the use of technology in the classroom and the integration of economics across subjects and settings. She regularly instructs a variety of online courses and conducts a multitude of hybrid K-12 workshops. She annually visits Japan to help grow the Council for Economic Education there.  For this and other work, the U.S. Council for Economic Education recently honored her with the 2012 Albert Beekhuis Center Award and the Fraser Institute, an independent Canadian public policy research and educational organization, named her a senior fellow.  Additionally, she is the inaugural recipient of the 2009 National Association of Economic Educator's Abbejean Kehler Technology Award and a 2009 recipient of an NMU Distinguished Faculty Award. She is a co-author of Common Sense Economics: What Everyone Should Know About Wealth and Prosperity, publishes in articles in journals and writes opeds for newspapers.  She earned her doctorate in economics from Washington University, where she studied under the 1993 Nobel laureate Douglass C. North.

Jeremy Horpedahl

Economics, Buena Vista University
Jeremy Horpedahl is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. He primarily teaches principles of microeconomics and macroeconomics, as well as international economics and political economy. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from George Mason University in 2009. He has published articles in the Atlantic Economic Journal, Constitutional Political Economy, Public Finance and Management, and Defence and Peace Economics.

Rob McDonald

History, US Military Academy, West Point
Robert M. S. McDonald is associate professor of history at the United States Military Academy.  He is a graduate of the University of Virginia, Oxford University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he earned his Ph.D.  A specialist on Thomas Jefferson and the early American republic, he has published several journal articles and other essays.  He is editor of Thomas Jefferson's Military Academy:  Founding West Point (2004), Light & Liberty: Thomas Jefferson and the Power of Knowledge (2012), and Sons of the Father: George Washington and His Protégés (2013). He is also the author of Confounding Father: Thomas Jefferson's Image in His Own Time (forthcoming in 2014).  A Cato Institute adjunct scholar, this is his eleventh year serving as an IHS summer seminar faculty member. He lives in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, with his wife, Christine, and their children Jeff and Grace. 

James Stacey Taylor

Philosophy,The College of New Jersey

A transplant from Scotland to the United States James Stacey Taylor is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at The College of New Jersey. Branded a heretic by the London Times for his arguments in favor of legalizing markets in human organs in his book Stakes and Kidneys: Why markets in human organs are morally imperative (Ashgate, 2005) he is also the author of Practical Autonomy and Bioethics (Routledge, 2009), and Death, Posthumous Harm, and Bioethics (Routledge, 2012). He is the editor of Personal Autonomy: New essays (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and Death: Metaphysics and Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2013). He is currently working on a book defending markets in everything, including votes and children.

July 20-26 ● Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, PA area

George Crowley

Economics, Troy University
George R. Crowley is an Assistant Professor of Economics and member of the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University in Troy, AL.  He earned his Ph.D. in economics from West Virginia University in 2011.  His research focuses on topics in public economics and constitutional political economy, with a specific emphasis on constraining government.  He has had articles appear in journals such as Economic Inquiry, Public Choice, and the Southern Economic Journal.  At Troy, he teaches Principles of Micro and Macroeconomics, Intermediate Microeconomics, Public Finance, and a course on the Economic and Moral Foundations of Capitalism.

Mimi Gladstein

Literature, University of Texas-El Paso
Mimi Reisel Gladstein is a Professor of English at the University of Texas at El Paso. She is the author of five books and co-editor of two.  The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: Selected Works of José Antonio Burciaga  is a 2009 American Book Award  winner.  Gladstein’s scholarly articles cover subjects as diverse as feminism in the Harry Potter series and bilingual wordplay in Hemingway and Steinbeck. Her articles have been translated and published in both Mexico and Japan.  International recognition includes the John J. and Angeline Pruis Award for teaching Steinbeck and the Burkhardt Award for Steinbeck scholarship.  At the University of Texas at El Paso she has served as Associate Dean of Liberal Arts, Chair of the English Department, Philosophy Department, Chair of Theatre, Dance, and Film and she was the first Director of the Women’s Studies Program.  In 2006 she received the University Distinguished Achievement Award for Service to Students. The El Paso Commission for Women named her to their Hall of Fame in2011.  The El Paso County Historical Society inducted her into their Hall of Honor. Currently, she is the faculty advisor for YAL (Young Americans for Liberty).

Sean Mulholland

Economics, Stonehill College
Sean Mulholland is currently an Associate Professor of Economics at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts and an affiliated senior scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has previously held faculty positions at Mercer University, Moravian College, and Auburn University - Montgomery. He has served as a faculty mentor at seminars sponsored by the Institute for Human Studies (IHS), filmed short clips for IHS’s LearnLiberty project, and led discussions at the Center for Excellence in Education’s Research Science Institute.  Specializing in economic growth, environmental economics, and labor economics, his work has appeared in the Journal of Economic Growth, Economics Letters, the Eastern Economic Journal, Education Economics, and the Villanova Law Review. Born and raised in Anderson, South Carolina, Mulholland lives in Providence, Rhode Island with his wife, Providence College economist, Angela K. Dills and their two sons. In his free time he likes to play with his kids and watch Clemson University sports.

Robert McNamara

Law, Institute for Justice
Robert McNamara litigates cutting-edge constitutional cases protecting First Amendment, property rights, economic liberty and other individual liberties in both federal and state courts. Currently, Mr. McNamara is lead counsel representing a group of Philadelphia tour guides challenging a law that would make it illegal for them to give tours without first obtaining a special license from the city government—literally making it illegal for them to talk about the Liberty Bell for compensation. His practice has also included representing property owners fighting unfair eminent domain procedures.

Charlotte Thomas

Philosophy, Mercer University
Charlotte Thomas received her BA from Mercer University in 1989 and her PhD in Philosophy from Emory University in 1996.  She is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Mercer University and Co-Director of the Center for America¹s Founding Principles.  She is also the Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program and a regular contributor to Mercer¹s Great Books program. Her scholarly interests include Ancient Political Philosophy, Philosophy and Literature, and Classical Liberalism. Her current research focuses on the middle books of Plato¹s Republic.

Readings »