American Presidency (Teacher Symposium)

The American Presidency

The Most Powerful, Impossible Job in the World

REGISTRATION CLOSED

The course will discuss the origins of the presidency and the executive branch, how it has evolved over the past 234 years, and the challenges facing the institution today.

 

Lead Scholar: Lindsay Chervinsky, Southern Methodist University
Master Teacher: Lindsey Charron

 

Image Source: Franklin Delano Roosevelt on board USS Baltimore at Pearl Harbor, 1944 (National Archives)

On board USS Baltimore (CA-68), at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 26 July 1944. Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff, is standing in the left background. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives

  • Up to 21 PD Hours

Table of Contents:

Course Description


Join Lindsay M. Chervinsky to learn about the American presidency—the most powerful and most impossible job in the world. The course will discuss the origins of the presidency and the executive branch, how it has evolved over the past 234 years, and the challenges facing the institution today. The course will examine critical precedents that shaped the presidency, as well as the president’s relationship with Congress, the press, the bully pulpit, diplomacy, and war powers. Lastly, teachers will explore the expanding role and importance of White House staff, first ladies, and the vice president.

Optional Book Talk: If you are interested in Professor Chervinsky’s scholarship but want to take a different course at the Teacher Symposium, you may attend her book talk on the forthcoming Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic (Oxford University Press, 2024). Symposium participants who come to these optional book talks can earn additional PD credit.

Recommended Course Readings (Optional)

Photograph of Abraham and his son Tad Lincoln reading

Abraham Lincoln and his ten-year-old son, Tad, based on a photograph by Anthony Berger, Washington, DC, 1864, published by Charles Desilver, Philadelphia (The Gilder Lehrman Institute, GLC00206.02)

  • John Dickerson. The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency. New York: Random House, 2020.
  • James W. Ceaser, Glen E. Thurow, Jeffrey Tulis, and Joseph M. Bessette. “The Rise of the Rhetorical Presidency.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 11, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 158–171. (Article emailed)
  • Abraham D. Sofaer. “Presidential Power and National Security.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 37, no. 1 (March 2007): 101–123. (Article emailed)

Course Leaders

Headshot of Lindsay Chervinsky

Lindsay Chervinsky, Lead Scholar

Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a senior fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. She is the author of the award-winning book The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, and author of the forthcoming book, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic. Chervinsky regularly writes for public audiences in the Wall Street Journal, Ms. magazine, the Daily Beast, The Bulwark, Time, USA Today, CNN, and the Washington Post, and regularly offers insight on TV, radio, and podcasts.

Headshot of Lindsey Charron

Lindsey Charron, Master Teacher

Lindsey Charron has taught for eighteen years and currently teaches eighth grade US history, student government, and yearbook at Ensign Intermediate School in Newport Beach, CA. She was selected as a James Madison Fellow in 2013 and has master’s degrees in history and educational technology. Lindsey is passionate about teaching with primary sources and using technology in the classroom. She is both a George Washington Teacher Fellow and Monticello Barringer Fellow and has attended many Gilder Lehrman Institute and NEH seminars. Additional roles Lindsey serves in are as a National Oratory Fellow with Ford’s Theatre and Master Teacher with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Most recently, she was selected as the California Council for Social Studies Middle School Teacher of the Year in 2020 and the California History Teacher of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in 2021.