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Former Republican Texas congressman William Hurd, a brief 2024 Republican presidential candidate who ran on an anti-Donald Trump platform, will headline the Harvard Institute of Politics’ class of Spring 2024 resident fellows.
Hurd’s selection, announced by the IOP Wednesday morning, comes a little over three months after he suspended his longshot bid for the GOP presidential nomination — about the same time Hurd’s candidacy lasted. Six other resident fellows and one visiting fellow will join Hurd at the IOP this semester, according to a press release.
The six other resident fellows include Kostas Bakoyannis, a former mayor of Athens; Jeff Denham, a former Republican member of Congress from California and U.S. Air Force sergeant; Josh A. Gerstein ’91, a veteran reporter covering the Supreme Court for Politico; Alison King, a longtime broadcast journalist covering politics in New England; Grisella M. Martinez,a former director of legislative affairs in the Biden-Harris Administration; and Erika Mouynes, former minister of foreign affairs of Panama.
The IOP will also host John Bel Edwards, the former governor of Louisiana, as a spring 2024 visiting fellow.
Éamon C. C. ÓCearúil ’25 and Summer A. L. Tan ’26, co-chairs of the IOP’s fellows and study groups program, praised the cohort’s “decades of collective experience” in fields ranging from journalism to government, especially in a year when half the world’s population will live in countries holding elections.
“Dubbed the ‘biggest election year in history,’ democracy will be tested in 2024 as countries containing more than half of the world’s population go to the polls,” ÓCearúil and Tan said in the release. “The Fellows program remains a critical source of discussion across ideological boundaries.”
IOP Director Setti Warren also emphasized the importance of the cohort’s “expertise, their insight, and their guidance as we gear up for a historic presidential campaign.”
Michael Nutter, chair of the IOP’s Senior Advisory Committee, said students stand to benefit from the intellectual diversity of the eight fellows.
“They each bring diverse perspectives on how to best approach some of our country’s – and our world’s – most pressing challenges,” Nutter wrote in the release.
“Our students will undoubtedly have important conversations and gain valuable insight into an array of critical issues,” he added.
For eight weeks, resident fellows will mentor a group of undergraduate students and lead study groups on a range of topics, including “diplomacy and statecraft, governing in a divided America, national political parties, judiciary affairs, and policy development,” according to a press release.
While the seven resident fellows will host regular weekly study group sessions, Edwards, as a visiting fellow, will only appear on campus occasionally during the semester.
Hurd said in the release that future leaders with a “thirst for public service” are crucial to “keep this experiment called America succeeding for another 247 years.”
“By sharing a different perspective forged from my unique experiences, I hope to show the students at Harvard how to pursue a life of public service and why they should,” he added.
—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.
—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.
