Summary
John Hopkins University President Ron Daniels has made understanding and improving democracy one of his primary areas of expertise and communication.
Author of the internationally recognized book What Universities Owe Democracy, Daniels is a leading voice in arguing for the indispensable role that universities play in sustaining democratic societies at a critical moment in history when democracies around the globe are under threat. Throughout his presidency, Johns Hopkins has made significant efforts to promote democratic values and civic education on campus. This includes the introduction of Democracy Day into first-year orientation; the launch of a university Debate Initiative to model reasoned debate on campus; and deepened support for the voter outreach initiative Hopkins Votes.
Daniels has led the creation of ambitious, multidisciplinary initiatives such as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute, which aims to strengthen civic engagement and encourage robust dialogue among all citizens.
Johns Hopkins University – 22/05/2022 (11:54)
Johns Hopkins University-wide Commencement Ceremony May 23, 2022 Homewood Field
News
Daniels calls the new building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., ‘the physical embodiment of our aspirations for our university in this moment, in this time’
Good morning!
Today, we have the great good fortune of dedicating a new building.
A magisterial new building in the heart—truly—of our nation’s capital.
One composed of 10 stories of soaring staircases and walkways … literal avenues of possibility connecting people, ideas, and disciplines.
Of floating, glass-walled classrooms where our students and faculty will engage not only with one another but with international leaders, diplomats, and national policymakers who are putting those ideas into action.
See entire speech at link above.
Event Summary
On October 24, AEI’s Jenna Silber Storey and Ronald J. Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University, discussed the relationship between universities and liberal democracy.
President Daniels wrote his recent book, What Universities Owe Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021), to examine how universities can contribute to or weaken democracy. He outlined how universities are indispensable in four key ways: promoting social mobility, imparting cultural and civic knowledge, producing and verifying knowledge, and modeling pluralism for students.
Dr. Silber and President Daniels discussed strategies to improve civic education on campuses, balancing knowledge-focused conservative approaches with skill-focused progressive approaches. President Daniels emphasized that the lack of conservative faculty in academia undermines debate and mentoring, but he was optimistic that with persistence and a willingness to engage these issues, university culture and ideological diversity can shift over time among faculty and students.
President Daniels highlighted efforts at Johns Hopkins to expand socioeconomic diversity and small group seminars as models for fulfilling universities’ democratic mission. Dr. Silber and President Daniels also discussed the decrease in public trust in universities, the durable political views of college students, the ending of legacy admissions at Johns Hopkins, the balance of liberal arts and career preparation, and the differences in pedagogy between small colleges and large universities.
Johns Hopkins University – February 23, 2022 (01:00)
Join Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels and SNF Agora faculty member Liliana Mason for a discussion of President Daniels’ recent book, What Universities Owe Democracy, which examines the role higher education can play in helping to restore American democracy in this moment of deep peril. In this in-depth conversation—originally broadcast as part of SNF Agora’s regular programming—SNF Agora faculty member Lilliana Mason, a political scientist whose research explores partisan identity and bias, social sorting, and American polarization joins President Daniels to explore how universities foster social mobility, civic development, evidence-based knowledge, and pluralism; where they have sometimes failed; and how they can move forward.
About
Biography
Ronald J. Daniels has served as the 14th president of Johns Hopkins University since 2009. Under his leadership, Johns Hopkins continues its preeminence in education, patient care, and innovative discovery, and has continued its more than 40-year span as the recipient of more competitively allocated federal research funding than any other university in the country.
During his tenure, Daniels has focused his efforts on several key areas: strengthening inter-disciplinary collaboration in research and education, expanding student access and support, enhancing the Hopkins experience for undergraduate and graduate students, deepening the university’s partnerships with our neighbors in Baltimore, and supporting economic and social innovation. These priorities continue to shape the strategic vision for Johns Hopkins as it approaches its 150th anniversary.
Daniels’ focus on interdisciplinary collaboration has produced a series of transformative initiatives aimed at addressing some of society’s most commanding challenges, from realizing the promise of precision medicine to addressing the threats facing democracy in the 21st century. With support from alumnus Michael Bloomberg, Daniels launched the Bloomberg Distinguished Professors program that has recruited 50 scholars from across the globe to hold joint appointments in two or more divisions of the university and will welcome another 50 scholars hired in research clusters designed to advance progress in critical areas from artificial intelligence to food security to health disparities. Daniels also has led the creation of ambitious, multidisciplinary initiatives such as the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs; the William H. Miller Departments of Philosophy and Physics; the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute; the Bloomberg American Health Initiative; and the Ralph S. O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute.
Daniels also has strengthened the quality of graduate education at Johns Hopkins overall, ushering in a series of reforms to PhD education: from the creation of a PhD innovation fund, to systematic collection and public dissemination of data on PhD program performance, to the creation of the first universitywide board charged with evaluating and supporting PhD education.
Throughout his tenure, Daniels has championed a universitywide vision for innovation, bolstering efforts to unleash entrepreneurial instincts, translate discoveries into novel technologies, and foster enterprises that are not only developed in Baltimore but also remain and grow in the city. The university’s innovation ecosystem now facilitates startup activity through four hubs offering more than 37,000 square feet of incubation space near its main Baltimore campuses—including a dedicated student facility and makerspace, a Social Innovation Lab supporting mission-driven organizations with disruptive technologies from Johns Hopkins and across Baltimore, and a suite of supports for faculty inventions and affiliated companies.
In May 2013, Daniels unveiled “Ten by Twenty,” a set of priorities to guide the university through the remainder of the decade.
Source: JHU webpage
Experience
Before coming to Johns Hopkins, Daniels was provost and professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and dean and James M. Tory Professor of Law at the University of Toronto.
Daniels is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He received a Carnegie Corporation of New York Academic Leadership Award in 2015 and was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2016.
Education
Daniels earned an LLM from Yale University in 1988 and a JD in 1986 from the University of Toronto, where he served as co–editor-in-chief of the law review.
He received a BA from the University of Toronto in 1982, graduating with high distinction.
He has been visiting professor and Coca-Cola World Fellow at Yale Law School and John M. Olin Visiting Fellow at Cornell Law School.
Contact
Email: School
Locations
Office of the President
242 Garland Hall
The Johns Hopkins University
3400 N. Charles St.
Baltimore, Maryland 21218
Phone: (410) 516-8068
Fax: (410) 516-6097
Web Links
Videos
What Universities Owe Democracy
February 4, 2022 (01:00)
By: SNF Agora Institute
4:32 / 5:26 • Have we forgotten the art of debate Johns Hopkins President on Role of Universities in Democracy
October 5, 2021 (05:26)
By: Bloomberg Television
Democracy Projects
Agora Institute
Source: Website
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute seeks to realize the promise of the ancient agora in modern times, by strengthening opportunities for people of all backgrounds to dialogue across difference, vigorously contest values and ideas that form the foundation of pluralistic democracy, and act together to have voice in developing solutions that lead to a better world.
Founded in 2017 with a visionary $150 million gift to Johns Hopkins University from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the SNF Agora Institute draws inspiration from the ancient Athenian agora, a gathering place for shared conversation, debate, and action that became the heart of democratic governance in Athens.
Special Democracy Events
Democracy Day 2023
For most Johns Hopkins undergraduates, the college experience is filled with a long list of firsts—including the first election in which they are eligible to vote. With that in mind, JHU held its third annual Democracy Day on Saturday, offering students an introduction to the democratic process and the ways they can engage with it.
Much of this year’s programming focused on the problems facing democracy, a theme JHU President Ron Daniels echoed in his opening remarks.”Liberal democracy … is not a self-executing endeavor,” he said. “We have seen time and time again throughout history that it can be derailed through apathy and indifference on the one hand, and nativism and fear on the other. For democracy to survive and to thrive, it must always be re-examined, re-energized, and renewed by lawyers, historians, philosophers, elected officials, and organizers.
Democracy and Freedom Festival
Source: 2024 Festival web page
The annual Elijah E. Cummings Democracy and Freedom Festivals—”a free event brings together scholars and practitioners from across the country to join with the Johns Hopkins and Baltimore communities as we grapple with some of the most urgent challenges facing democracy, model civic engagement across divides, and celebrate democratic resilience and opportunity”.
Hopkins Votes
Source: Website
Johns Hopkins University takes seriously its obligation to cultivate active and engaged citizens. Hopkins Votes provides resources and guidance to help JHU students and employees participate in the democratic process.
Hopkins Votes is a nonpartisan initiative that provides voter assistance and education to Johns Hopkins University faculty, staff, students, and the wider community. We are committed to facilitating access to the electoral process for all eligible voters, regardless of an individual’s political affiliation, location, voting method, or registration status.
Publications
What Universities Owe Democracy
Other Publications
Source: JHU Biography
A law and economics scholar, Daniels is also co-author of seven previous books and dozens of scholarly articles on the intersections of law, economics, development, and public policy in areas such as corporate and securities law, social and economic regulation, and the role of law and legal institutions in promoting third-world development.
Over his three decades as an academic leader, Daniels writing has focused on the constraints facing young investigators in American life-science research, the opportunities for anchor institutions to support local economic growth, the significance of the humanities in education and society, and the governance of public and private universities. He chaired a congressionally mandated National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine commission whose 2018 final report addressed the challenges confronting postdoctoral students and young faculty members in the life sciences.
See Research Gate for all publications
More Information
Financial Aid
Source: JHU Biography
Long a champion of reducing barriers to participation in higher education by students from diverse and lower socioeconomic backgrounds, Daniels committed the university at his installation to enhancing its financial aid program and becoming need-blind. A landmark gift of $1.8 billion for student financial aid from alumnus Michael Bloomberg has now made Hopkins permanently need-blind and no-loan for all undergraduate students.
During Daniels’ presidency, the university has dramatically increased the diversity and academic excellence of the undergraduate study body, which now ranks among the very highest in the nation.With the aim to make similar progress in its graduate ranks, Johns Hopkins launched the $150 million Vivien Thomas Scholars Initiative to expand pathways for underrepresented minority scholars in STEM PhD programs, which in 2022 welcomed its inaugural cohort of 20 Vivien Thomas scholars.
Baltimore Initiatives
Under Daniels’ leadership, Johns Hopkins also has significantly increased its engagement in its hometown of Baltimore. This commitment has fueled myriad initiatives that expand Hopkins’ dedication to the economic, social, and educational wellbeing of our communities and our neighbors. This commitment is embodied in the creation and expansion of partnerships with Baltimore City Schools, including the construction and operation of the Henderson-Hopkins School as the first new school built in East Baltimore in more than 20 years, and HopkinsLocal, a major economic inclusion effort through which Johns Hopkins University and Health System are expanding business and workforce opportunities in Baltimore.
Under this program, more than 1,400 citizens from the most distressed neighborhoods in the city have been recruited into jobs, and Johns Hopkins has continued to be a national leader in the hiring of formerly incarcerated people. The university’s commitment to Baltimore City is also evident in renewed and expanded investment in an 88-acre revitalization plan near the Johns Hopkins campus in East Baltimore; the Homewood Community Partners Initiative, a $10 million commitment that has leveraged more than $200 million in investments from others to strengthen the physical, social, and economic well-being of 10 neighborhoods around the Homewood campus; and the creation and sustenance of partnerships with community and civic leaders across the city.
