Larry Hogan and this Maryland college want to bridge the partisan divide

Since he left office in 2023, former Gov. Larry Hogan has been on a sort of extended college road trip, touring the country and stopping at prestigious schools like Georgetown University and Dartmouth College, to share his views about the importance of bipartisanship and the political landscape today.

On that tour, the Republican said, a few colleges asked him to lend his expertise and last name to establish a civics program.

He chose Washington College, a small private school on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, to open The Hogan Institute, a civics center designed to “advance a return to founding principles and common sense,” he said.

The institute, Hogan hopes, will help bridge the partisan divide overwhelming national politics and extend his legacy into educating the next generation of leaders.

“I think that the majority of Americans today really believe that our country is way off track, that we’re heading in the wrong direction,” Hogan said in an interview. “They’re sort of fed up with the divisive politics and the extremes of both parties.”

The institute is just the latest civics-rooted center established at a college in recent years. Similar centers have sprung up at the University of Iowa and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, partially influenced by declining proficiency in civics education nationwide.

A 2024 study by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation found that more than 70% of Americans fail a basic civic literacy quiz, unable to name the three branches of government or the number of Supreme Court justices. A 2022 poll by Pew Research Center found that 72% of both Republicans and Democrats find the other party immoral.

“The level of knowledge among the general public around basic facts and processes, like how to vote, how to give input about government policies, has long been on the decline,” said Diana Owen, founder and director of the Civic Education Research Lab at Georgetown University.

Owen said that civics centers on college campuses have in recent years exploded in popularity, largely due to the ability to raise funds for them.

“The jury is still out on whether these centers bridge divisions,” she said. “It’s best to start early, like at the K-12 level, but these programs are still helpful in engaging student conversation.”

Hogan chose the Chestertown-based college to house the institute because of its connection to American history. Washington was the first college in the country chartered after the Declaration of Independence was signed. The country’s first president, George Washington, gave his name and some funding to open the school, and served on the college’s board.

The Hogan Institute’s first year is funded by “a couple of donors who are associated with the college,” said Colin Pascal, the executive director. He declined to name them.

The college is also applying for grants focused on civic renewal.

Fundraising will help the institute hire two or three more staff members, bring guest speakers to campus and eventually, leaders hope, create scholarships. Next year, Pascal said, they hope to create a policy lab that will give Washington students the opportunity to help state lawmakers write legislation and testify in Annapolis.

Pascal, who spent his career in the U.S. Army, met Hogan while volunteering on his unsuccessful 2024 U.S. Senate campaign. This fall, Pascal said, the institute will begin engaging some of Hogan’s former political donors to shore up additional funding.

“I think we’ve got a strong case to make that we can help nudge the country in the right direction,” he said.

Hogan and Washington College President Bryan Matthews each appointed seven members of the institute’s advisory board. All of Hogan’s picks worked either in his administration or on his U.S. Senate campaign, while Matthews’ picks are alumni of the college or board members.

Though there are lots of Republicans on the institute’s board, it can still be nonpartisan, said Owen, the civics researcher at Georgetown.

“Usually to get these institutes off the ground, you need someone high profile, like a Larry Hogan, who is going to take the reins and do it,” she said. “Hopefully over time the board will become more bipartisan, and I do hope that Hogan will be going out of his way to make sure student participants are from all sides of the political spectrum.”

Christine Wade, the institute’s faculty director, said that all of the political expertise on the board will help shape the institute’s bipartisan mission.

“We can’t eliminate conflict from society,” she said. “The question is, how do we manage those tensions and produce better policies, better discourse and hopefully encourage a new generation of students to enter public service?”

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