Building Future Leaders in America
The time was the late 1960s. The United States was engulfed in a seismic cultural and political shift. Radicalism dominated college campuses. Confidence in the American system of government was on the decline.
That atmosphere prompted former New Jersey Governor Charles Edison, in 1967, to lay the foundation for what would become the Fund for American Studies, a nonprofit that organizes training programs to teach college students the values of freedom, individual responsibility, and free markets.
Built around training young people to be the leaders of tomorrow, TFAS targets students interested in fields of study that are particularly influential in society: journalism, government, political science, international affairs, nonprofits, and the law.
“The founders of the Fund for American Studies felt it was the obligation of every generation to prepare the next generation for leadership. That’s particularly true in a free society,” said TFAS President Roger Ream.
At the time that TFAS was founded, Ream says, there was a deep concern that young people weren’t getting a balanced perspective on government in the halls of higher education.
“Now the evidence is much clearer: On many colleges and universities, the faculty tends to lack the intellectual diversity that is healthy to an education,” he said. “We try to provide a more balanced perspective through the programs that we offer here.”
Economics is heavily emphasized in all of the programs.
“In all of the tracks, students are required to take some form of economics, which we think is sorely lacking in most colleges,” Ream said. “Very few students learn any economics.”
Training programs
TFAS offers four eight-week institutes during the summer:
— Institute on International Affairs
— Institute on Public Policy and Economics
— Institute on Journalism and Communications
— Institute on Business and Government Relations
The institutes are intense, combining lectures, coursework, internships, evening lectures, and site briefings at key institutions of national government.
TFAS also offers educational opportunities during the traditional spring semester. The Washington Fellowship Program offers a combination of coursework and an internship in Washington, D.C.
Students applying to the program must submit an academic transcript and letters of recommendation. Scholarships are available for students with a financial need.
That’s important for most students, because the cost of attending is equal to 12 academic credits at George Mason University, plus housing.
“The vast majority of our students get at least some scholarship support. It ranges anywhere from a small scholarship to a full one,” Ream said.
David Stover, a board member of the John William Pope Foundation, participated in TFAS in 1977. He has high praise for the instruction.
“There aren’t many programs where you learn about Joseph Schumpeter and the economic concept of ‘creative destruction,’ plus have a two-month exposure, through internships and speakers, to how government interfaces with the businesses, politicians, and journalists,” Stover said.
Tar Heel State focus
Over 350 alumni of TFAS live in North Carolina right now. The program always has enjoyed solid representation from N.C. State University, schools in the UNC System, Duke University, and Elon University.
“Fortunately, a lot of the students who come through this program return to North Carolina, and they’re involved in politics or business or the judiciary or journalism,” Ream said.
Ream credits the Pope Foundation’s commitment with the large number of alumni in the Tar Heel State.
“We’ve been blessed to have the support of the Pope Foundation since 1993, and we have other donors in North Carolina who help make it possible to provide scholarships to North Carolina students to come through our program,” he said.
Ream himself is a product of TFAS. He attended in the early 1970s, after which he interned for a congressman, caught “Potomac fever,” and decided to remain in Washington, D.C. Little did he know that, years later, he would be president of TFAS.
“My real passion is trying to teach economics to young people,” Ream said. “The economic way of thinking really helps us understand the way the world works. If more people knew economics, we’d have much better public policy coming out of Washington.”