Matthew Spalding

Vice President of Hillsdale College’s Washington operations and Dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government; long-tenured Heritage Foundation scholar before joining Hillsdale; executive director of the 1776 Commission; a key institutional connector between Hillsdale, Heritage, and the Trump-era originalist project

Spalding worked at Heritage for two decades on the founders, the Constitution, and civic education before moving to Hillsdale. He served as executive director of Trump’s 1776 Commission Report and is one of the principal “1776”/American-founding-as-civic-religion figures in the Hillsdale-Claremont orbit. He departed Heritage during Kay Cole James’s tenure along with David Azerrad, Arthur Milikh, and Ryan T. Anderson — the cohort whose exits flagged Heritage’s coming radicalization under Kevin Roberts.

See also: Hillsdale College, Heritage Foundation, 1776 Commission Report, Larry P. Arnn.