Thomas Edward Cronin (born March 18, 1940) is a political scientist. He was president of

Whitman College Whitman College is a private liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington. The school offers 53 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and it has a student-to-faculty ratio of 9:1. Whitman was the first college in the Pacific ...

from 1993 to 2005. He was the McHugh Professor of American Institutions and Leadership at

Colorado College Colorado College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory. The college enrolls approxi ...

. Cronin's field of study is the 'expanding power of the American presidency in the 20th century'. He has also written extensively on American elections, political novels and movies. Cronin received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in political science from Stanford University.He served on the White House staff in 1966 and early 1967 as a White House Fellow. From 1969 to 1972, Cronin was a research associate at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in e ...

. In 1977, he was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board. He later served on a dozen boards including, Cascade Natural Gas Corp., Monterey Institute of International Studies, Institute of American Studies and the Executive Council of the APSA. He served also as President of the Western Political Science Association and the APSA's Presidency Research Group. He own several awards for outstanding teaching, advising and research. He has been awarded three honorary Ph.D. degrees by Marietta College, Franklin College and Whitman College.

Academic career

Cronin held an

assistant professor Assistant Professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States and Canada. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doctoral degree A docto ...

ship at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

from 1967 to 1970. From 1979 to 1993, he held an

endowed A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

chair at

. He was a member of the faculty and in 1991, was the acting president of the college. He took a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

ship at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1985 and 1986. From 1993 to 2005 Cronin served as President of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. In 2005, Cronin returned to Colorado College to teach and to write. (According to one of his anecdotes, Colorado College called Cronin for guidance on whom to hire as his replacement; instead of providing them with recommendations, he informed the college that he would like to return as the "McHugh Professor of American Institutions and Leadership" at Colorado College). Official website—ThomasECronin.info He has been a long term contributing writer for the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post, Colorado Sp-rings and Denver Gazette, ad Colorado Politics. He has also written for the New York Times, Seattle Times, Washington Post and TV guide and Science, among other journals.

Fundraising

Cronin assisted in raising funds for the acquisition of the Baca campus and the building of the Lodge there by Colorado College.

Published works

*''The Presidential Advisory System (Harper & Row, 1969) *''The Presidency Reappraised'' (Praeger, 1974, 1977) *''The State of the Presidency'' (Little Brown, 1980) *''US v. Crime in the Streets'' (Indiana, 1981) *''Inventing the American Presidency'' (Kansas, 1989) *''Direct Democracy'' (Harvard, 1989) *''Colorado Politics and Government'' (Nebraska, 1993) new edition 2013. *''The Paradoxes of the American Presidency'' (Oxford University Press, 1998, 6th edition 2020) *''Government by the People'' (Prentice-Hall, 2000)--multiple editions including a Chinese language edition. *''State and Local Politics'' (Prentice-Hall, 2000) *''On The Presidency'' (Paradigm, 2009) *"Leadership Matters" (Paradigm and Rutledge, 2012) *''Imagining a Great Republic'' (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers 2018) *"Writing as a Performing Art (Abuzz-Booklocker Press, 2020)

References

External links

Thomas E. Cronin papers at the Whitman College and Northwest Archives, Whitman College.
And in Special Collections at Colorado College.
President Cronin: Biography
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cronin, Thomas American political scientists Writers about direct democracy Colorado College faculty Presidents of Colorado College Princeton University faculty University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty Presidents of Whitman College Living people 1940 births People from Milton, Massachusetts