ASHLAND, Ohio – The Ashbrook Center Board has named Dr. Jeffrey Sikkenga as the Ashbrook Center’s new executive director.
Sikkenga, who was chosen from a large pool of applicants after an extensive national search, has served as the Ashbrook interim executive director for the past seven months.
“The Board was tasked with finding the best person to lead the Ashbrook Center, someone who would perpetuate Ashbrook’s purpose of restoring and strengthening the capacities of the American people for constitutional self-government,” said board Chairman Marvin J. Krinsky. “And the decision of the Board was unanimous. We are confident that Jeff, with his deep understanding and commitment to preserving American freedom and his true love for Ashbrook and our country, has the judgment and vision to advance the educational programs of the Ashbrook Center for students, teachers and citizens.”
For the past 23 years, Sikkenga has taught teachers, undergraduates, and high school students through Ashbrook’s Teaching American History programs, the Ashbrook Scholar Program and the Ashbrook Academy. He will continue to maintain a teaching role in the classroom as a professor of political science at Ashland. “It is an honor to be Ashbrook’s Executive Director,” Sikkenga said, “and I’ll do everything I can to help Ashbrook advance its mission of educating our fellow Americans in the history and founding principles of our country.”
Sikkenga also has been a senior fellow in the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia, a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and the William E. Simon Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. He has lectured across the country on religious liberty, American politics, and the Supreme Court and has published books, book chapters, and articles on American political thought, the U.S. Constitution, and politics and religion.