Charles Hermann

Dr. Charles F. Hermann is a senior professor and the Brent Scowcroft Chair Emeritus. He came to Texas A&M University in 1995 to serve as the founding director of the Bush School of Government and Public Service. After the School became an independent unit with its own dean (initially Robert Gates), he served as associate dean for academic programs and then as the designer and first director of the Master's Program in International Affairs, when it was created as a separate graduate degree within the Bush School. He continued that assignment until 2013, when he spent a year on professional leave at the Ohio State University.

In addition to administrative responsibilities, Dr. Hermann has been an active scholar and teacher in the fields of foreign policy, national security, and group decision making and simulation; he has published widely on each of these topics. In 2012, he edited and contributed to When Things Go Wrong: Foreign Policy Decision Making under Adverse Feedback. In pursuit of his research, he has received a number of grants and contracts from both private and public sources, including the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Currently, his research examines the likelihood and nature of change in foreign policy when a president finds an existing policy appears not to be operating as expected. He also is co-authoring a book with Sally Dee Wade, Called to Serve: The First 20 Years of the Bush School, to be published by Texas A&M University Press.

After receiving his PhD from Northwestern University, he taught at Princeton University until accepting a Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship in 1969 to serve on the National Security Council under Dr. Henry Kissinger. From there, he went to the Ohio State University, where he became director of the Mershon Center for International Security Studies until 1995. (He temporarily left that post from 1988-90 to serve as the acting vice provost for International Affairs at Oho State.) He has been active in his profession and served as president of the International Studies Association, 1988-89, which awarded him the Distinguished Senior Scholar Award in 2001.

He has also been active in the local community, having served as president of the board of the Opera and Performing Arts Society and of the Brazos Valley Symphony Society. He serves on the board of Project Unity.