Dr. Matthew Spalding

Vice President of Washington Operations and Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government for Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C.

Matthew Spalding is Vice President of Washington Operations and Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government for Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C. He oversees the operations of the Kirby Center and the academic and educational programs of Hillsdale in the nation’s capital.

He is the best-selling author of We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future, which details America’s core principles, shows how they have come under assault by modern progressive-liberalism, and lays out a strategy to recover them. Spalding is also executive editor of The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, a line-by-line analysis of each clause of the U.S. Constitution. His other books include A Sacred Union of Citizens: Washington’s Farewell Address and the American Character; Patriot Sage: George Washington and the American Political Tradition; and The Founders’ Almanac: A Practical Guide to the Notable Events, Greatest Leaders & Most Eloquent Words of the American Founding.

Prior to joining Hillsdale, Dr. Spalding was vice president of American Studies at The Heritage Foundation and founding director of its B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. He is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, and serves on the board of the Steamboat Institute.

He received his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. In addition to teaching at Hillsdale, he has taught at George Mason University, the Catholic University of America, and Claremont McKenna College. He and his wife Elizabeth, a Hillsdale alumna, reside with their two children in Arlington, Virginia.