Why Woodrow Wilson?
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, named in honor of the political scientist who became the United States’ 28th president, stands—as he did—for excellence in teaching, citizen-scholarship, and educational innovation. Woodrow Wilson is the only American president to have earned the Ph.D. He was a respected scholar, a popular teacher and, during his presidency at Princeton (1902-1910), an educational reformer. He spoke widely and often about higher education’s service to the nation. He sought to make higher learning less exclusive. Above all, he reemphasized the centrality of the liberal arts and sciences as preparation for citizenship in a democracy. In the century since Wilson’s days of academic leadership, the challenges facing education in the United States have broadened. Today the nation seeks access to excellence at every level, from kindergarten through graduate school, for every American, including women, people of color, and those from the neediest socioeconomic
