Our Mission
The presidency serves as a key institution for understanding democracy and power in the United States, and remains one of the primary ways Americans understand the health and direction of national politics. Yet too often, the public only encounters the presidency through biography and trivia, focused on the person who holds the office and the power they wield.
But the presidency is a far more expansive institution. The executive branch is empowered and constrained by Congress and the Supreme Court, as well the millions of workers tasked with executing a president’s agenda. Activists and ordinary people, some of whom may never step foot in Washington, D.C., lobby presidents in the hopes of creating lasting change—and at times, they succeed.
The Rogers Center brings this wider view of the presidency—one that includes those outside the White House as well as those within—to bear on presidential scholarship. We are building a diverse community of presidential scholars who are reviving the field of presidential studies, while engaging the public in new ways of thinking about the presidency.
Our History
The Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Center for the American Presidency was established in 2021 with a generous gift from alumni Carolyn Thomas Rogers BA’75 and Robert Moss Rogers BA’75. The gift established the center to be a place of innovative scholarship and public outreach on the presidency. Carolyn and Robert Rogers have shaped the field of presidential studies at Vanderbilt, establishing the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Chair in American Presidency, currently held by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham, in 2018.
In 2022, presidential historian Nicole Hemmer joined the Rogers Center as its inaugural director. Before joining Vanderbilt, Hemmer served as a research scholar with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project at Columbia University and in the Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia. She has conducted research on a number of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates, from Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson to Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, and has provided analysis on U.S. presidential politics for a number of U.S. and international outlets, including the The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, CBS, CNN, NPR, and the BBC.
Contact Us
Rogers Center for the American Presidency
Buttrick Hall, 1st Floor
2301 Vanderbilt Place
Nashville, TN 37235-0086