Matthew Spalding was looking out of his office window, talking on the phone with Larry Arnn, when the college president said something about expanding the college’s mission to D.C., and maybe even buying a building.
“So I said, ‘Well, there’s a really attractive building across the street and there’s a ‘for sale’ sign,” Spalding recalled.
This week, Spalding has moved across the street to join Hillsdale’s Kirby Center for Constitutional Studies as the school’s assistant vice president and dean of educational programs, expanding Hillsdale’s operations at the Kirby Center.
“The idea is that we want Kirby to be thought of less as this far-off outpost in Washington that no one knows what it’s doing, and see it more naturally as a megaphone for what the school teaches,” Spalding said. “Much more the voice of the college in Washington and in the general public.”
Spalding’s experience as vice president of American studies at the Heritage Foundation makes instructing lawmakers on “first principles” a familiar task. During his time at the Heritage Foundation, Spalding ran both the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics and The Center for Policy Innovation.
The two centers not only educate the public on America’s founding principles, but also how to apply them.
“What the college teaches right now in its classes is quite pertinent to what Washington needs — what the country needs,” Spalding said. “We want to bring those things together.”
Spalding completed his undergraduate degree at Claremont McKenna College. Eventually, Spalding returned to Claremont to earn his PhD. There, he studied with Charles Kessler, befriended Larry Arnn, and met then-fellow-students Mickey Craig and Ronald Pestritto.
After graduating, he began his 19-year career at the Heritage Foundation. During that time, he also taught college students at George Mason University, the Catholic University of America, and Claremont McKenna College and wrote or co-authored 11 books, including “We Still Hold These Truths” and “The Founder’s Almanac.”
“Based on his experience at the Heritage Foundation and the fact that his scholarship focuses on the American founding, Dr. Spalding is a perfect fit,” said Professor of Politics Mickey Craig.
Politics professor Ronald Pestritto agreed.
“Dr. Spalding has the perfect combination of qualities for the mission of the Kirby Center,” Pestritto said. “He has an academic background with a reputable record of teaching and scholarship, and he has long experience in the national policy arena. Hillsdale students will find that Dr. Spalding is generous with his time, and will also enjoy getting to know him on a personal level.
Spalding first encountered Hillsdale when he met and married his wife, Elizabeth, an ’88 graduate who currently teaches international relations for Claremont Mckenna College in D.C.
“She’s also written a book about Harry Truman,” Spalding said. “She’s a modern foreign policy person.”
The couple lives in Arlington, Va. with their two children, Joseph and Katherine, who are in eighth and sixth grade.
Spalding originally comes from a rural area in central California, where he grew up in a town even smaller than Hillsdale.
“Here you have seasons – fall, winter, and spring. And it’s urban, but not too urban,” Spalding said. “I love history, and I’m an academic in that sense: by training and interest — but I also love politics and this is a one-shop town in that sense.”
And that is one of the many connecting factors between Spalding’s positions at the Heritage Foundation and Hillsdale — the promotion of the principles that shaped America at the time of its founding and ensuring that they still do today.
“It really isn’t like I’m going to a ‘new’ institution,” Spalding said. “It’s like coming home.”