Abraham Lincoln Center Mission Statement
The Abraham Lincoln Center for Leadership and Public Policy will provide an intellectual environment to encourage research and study into leadership theory, ethical practices, and public policy making. The Center seeks to raise public awareness of the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln and inspire civic engagement through Lincoln’s enduring example of values-based leadership.
Abraham Lincoln Center Objectives
Staff & Board
Executive Director - Dr. William E. Hardy
Dr. William E. Hardy is Assistant Professor of History and Lincoln Scholar in the History Department, Paul V. Hamilton School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at Lincoln Memorial University. He received his B.A. and M.A. in History at the University of Louisville and earned his Ph.D. in 19th Century American History from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Hardy specializes in the political, constitutional, and cultural history of nineteenth-century America and Tennessee history. His teaching and research interests include the life and times of Abraham Lincoln; the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras; nineteenth-century American sports; and military, Southern, and Tennessee History. He has recently completed a history of Civil War era baseball in Tennessee and is currently at work on a study of Tennessee's Reconstruction Era and a destructive fire that destroyed Knoxville, Tennessee's business district at the turn of the twentieth century.
Dr. William E. Hardy can be contacted by phone (423) 869-6841 or email: William.Hardy@lmunet.edu
Advisory Board
Dr. Brian Dirck - Professor of History, Anderson University, Anderson, IN. Dr. Dirck earned his Ph.D. in History at the University of Kansas. His scholarship interests includes constitutional law, the Civil War era, and especially the life and career of Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Dirck is the author of a number of award winning books on Abraham Lincoln, including Abraham Lincoln and White America, Lincoln the Lawyer, and his most recent The Black Heavens: Abraham Lincoln and Death.
Dr. Stephanie Holyfield - Assistant Professor of History and History Program Chair, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN. Dr. Holyfield earned her Ph.D. in American History at the University of Delaware. Her scholarship interests includes business history, the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, The Cold War, Latin American history, and public history. Dr. Holyfield's current projects includes a biography of Quaker industrialist William Bancroft and a National Register of Historic Places nomination of the Vincelette Futuro House, Houston, Delaware.
Dr. Charles Hubbard - Emeritus Professor of History, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN.
Mr. Michael Lynch - Director of the Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum, Instructor of History, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN.
Ms. Natalie Sweet - Executive Director, Office of Research, Grants, and Sponsored Programs (ORGSP), Lincoln Memorial University, TN.
Dr. Michael Toomey - Emeritus Professor of History, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN.
Ex Officio - Dr. Martin Sellers - Dean of the Paul V. Hamilton School of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Professor of Government, Lincoln Memorial University, Harrogate, TN.
