Maryland’s former governor and Washington College will open a civics center with help from political allies and alumni
Ellie Wolfe8/16/2026 5:30 a.m. EDT (this article appeared first in the Baltimore Banner, follow this link for more).
Since he left office in 2023, former Gov. Larry Hogan has been on a sort of extended college road trip, touring the country and stopping at prestigious schools like Georgetown University and Dartmouth College, to share his views about the importance of bipartisanship and the political landscape today.
On that tour, the Republican said, a few colleges asked him to lend his expertise and last name to establish a civics program.
He chose Washington College, a small private school on Maryland’s Eastern Shore,to open The Hogan Institute, a civics center designed to “advance a return to founding principles and common sense,” he said.
The institute, Hogan hopes, will help bridge the partisan divide overwhelming national politics and extend his legacy into educating the next generation of leaders.
“I think that the majority of Americans today really believe that our country is way off track, that we’re heading in the wrong direction,” Hogan said in an interview. “They’re sort of fed up with the divisive politics and the extremes of both parties.”
The institute is just the latest civics-rooted center established at a college in recent years. Similar centers have sprung up at the University of Iowa and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, partially influenced by declining proficiency in civics education nationwide.
