Past CSF Fellows

Robert B. Hawkins, Jr. (1941-2014), a fourth-generation Californian, was a long-time friend and fellow of the Center for the Study of Federalism and a member of the board of directors of CSF Associates: Publius. He was president of the Sequoia Institute, founded in 1973, and president and CEO of the Institute for Contemporary Studies in Oakland, California, which focused primarily on self-governance, federalism, and decentralization. The ICS believed that men and women who control their lives through self-governing institutions live more productive lives. In 1987, he commissioned Denis P. Doyle of the Hudson Institute and David Kearns, CEO of Xerox, to write Winning the Brain Race, an ICS bestseller that helped shape education reform across the country.

Hawkins served on President Ronald Reagan’s Federalism Advisory Commission and, later, as chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations from 1982 to 1993. From 1987 to 1991, he co-hosted the San Francisco public policy television program That’s Politics and a weekly radio show called California Political Review. He served as the director of the American Public Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. There, he conducted national seminars on such issues as federalism reform, education, environmental policy, local government, and transportation. After serving in the U.S. Army, he spent four years as director of California’s State Office of Economic Opportunity under Governor Reagan. He was one of the youngest appointed department heads in the state’s history.

He earned a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Washington and contributed chapters to No Land Is an Island (1975), The Politics of Planning (1976), and Fairmont Papers (1981).

His other publications include:

• Hawkins, Robert B., Jr. 2016. “Self-Governance.” In Encyclopedia of American Governance, ed. Stephen L. Schechter. Detroit: Macmillan.
• Hawkins, Robert B., Jr. ed. 1982. American Federalism: A New Partnership for the Republic.
• San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies and New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
• Hawkins, Robert B., Jr. 1978. “Government Reorganization: A Federal Interest.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 8 (2): 3-12.
• Hawkins, Robert B., Jr. 1978. “Federal Principles for Government Reorganization.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 8 (2): 133-140.
• Hawkins, Robert B., Jr. 1976. Self-Government by District: Myth and Reality. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.

Ellis Katz (1938-2023) was Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Temple University, where he taught courses in American federalism, constitutional law, and state and local government. He joined the faculty in 1962 and retired in 1998. At Temple, he served as Chair of the Graduate Political Science Program, Director of the General Education Program for Teachers, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, and beginning in 1990 as Coordinator of the Political Science Program at Temple’s suburban Ambler campus.

While at Temple, Ellis was Acting Director of the Center for the Study of Federalism (1977 – 1980). At the Center, he was especially active in programs on constitutional law, Pennsylvania state politics, state education policy, teacher education, and state politics generally. He directed or co-directed various Center programs, including “The United States Constitution: Classic Works and Scholarly Approaches,” Fulbright Summer Institute in Philadelphia funded by the U.S. Department of State (2000); “Federalism and Rights” in Philadelphia funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant (1992); “State Constitutional Law in the Third Century of American Federalism,” sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and Center for the Study of Federalism (1987); the Educational Seminar of Pennsylvania in the late 1970s funded by the Institute for Educational Leadership to study state education policy-making and implementation; and “Utilizing Federalist Principles in Civic Education,” funded by a grant from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) at the National Institute of Education, U.S. Department of Education (1982). He also served as a teaching scholar in various Center institutes for teachers sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Ellis served as Coordinator of the Pennsylvania Educational Seminar. Beginning in the late 1970s he organized teacher seminars sponsored by the Robert A. Taft Institute of Government that brought teachers together with political leaders, journalists, and scholars to discuss issues relating to federalism and state education policy.

Ellis received his BA from Rutgers University in 1960 and his MA and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1962 and 1966. He also did advanced work at the University of Wisconsin.

He is the author or editor of more than 50 books, scholarly articles, and research reports. His articles have appeared in Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Journal of Public Law, and State Government. His books include:

• Marbach, Joseph R., Ellis Katz, and Troy E. Smith, eds. 2005. Federalism in America: An Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
• Katz, Ellis and G. Alan Tarr, eds. 1996. Federalism and Rights. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Elazar, Daniel J. and Ellis Katz, eds. 1992. American Models of Revolutionary Leadership: George Washington and Other Examples. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
• Katz, Ellis, 1989. Chapters 1, 9, and 10 in U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. State Constitutions in the American Federal System. Washington, DC: U.S. ACIR, A-113.
• Katz, Ellis, 1982.American Education: A View From the States. Philadelphia.
• Katz, Ellis. 1978. Educational Policymaking, 1977- 1978: A Snapshot from the States. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Educational Leadership.

Stephen L. Schechter (1945-2022) was a Professor of Political Science in the Department of History and Society, at Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, where he taught since 1978 to 2020.  He also directed the Council for Citizenship Education and the undergraduate major in Policy Advocacy and Civic Engagement (PACE). He received his B.A. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 1967 and his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh in 1972.

Schechter joined the Center for the Study of Federalism in 1972 where he coordinated international programs and later served as Acting Director of the Center for the Study of Federalism. Over the years, he has worked on various federalism projects with the Center for the Study of Federalism, including the Cities of the Prairie Project, teacher education workshops, and international exchange institutes. With Daniel J. Elazar, he co-founded the Section on Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations of the American Political Science Association, the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies, and the Publius Annual Review.

He served as Editor-in-Chief of the five-volume Encyclopedia of American Governance published by Macmillan (2012-2015). From 1995 to 2010, he directed the international civic education programs Civics Mosaic, Civitas-Russia, and Civitas-Eurasia, graduating as many as 150,000 students a year and training tens of thousands of teachers across Eurasia in cooperation with the American Federation of Teachers and the Teacher’s Newspaper of Russia. In his home state, he has served as Co-Director, New York State Consortium for Civic Learning (2004-2007); Research Director, New York State Commission on the Capital Region (the Regionalization Commission) exploring intergovernmental regionalization policies (1995-1997); and Executive Director of the New York State Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution (1986-1990).

His publications include American Governance (Macmillan, 2015), Exploring Political Ideas: Concepts That Shape Our World (CQ Press, 2010), Roots of the Republic (Madison House; Rowman & Littlefield, 1990), and various books on the political and constitutional history of New York State.

His public service ranged widely. He directed a college-community homeownership program in Troy, New York, raising private-sector funds for dozens of homeownership loans, developed various college-school partnerships in curriculum and professional development, and authored the New York State Education Department’s Core Curriculum for the 12th grade civics course, Participation in Government. Internationally, he served as a Semi-Permanent Adviser to the U.S. Information Agency, and he has traveled for the U.S. Department of State to Bosnia, Iraq, and the West Bank. He received Mongolia’s Presidential Friendship Medal and a special award from Russia’s Citizenship Foundation.

Benjamin R. Schuster earned a Ph.D. in political science from Temple University in 1978. His dissertation was the first update of the research on which The Cities of the Prairie was based. He served as the Assistant Director of CFS and the managing editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism from 1976 to 1982. For the next five years, he was the communications director for the Majority Whip in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He then spent 25 years as a corporate public affairs executive. His assignments included lobbying state and local governments throughout the United States and heading the Washington, D.C., office of an international chemical company. His teaching experience included a full-time position at the Graduate School of Public Affairs at SUNY-Albany and graduate and undergraduate courses at Temple, St. Joseph’s, and Villanova universities. He is retired and living in Santa Fe, New Mexico.