The Rodel Institute is a nonpartisan center for leadership development and intellectual growth. Our past fellows include: two members of President Trump’s cabinet and three from President Biden’s cabinet, U.S. Senators from both parties, members of Congress from both parties, and Governors from both parties.

Every seminar we hold has between 16 and 28 participants with similar numbers from each party. The judges who attend Rodel Judicial Seminars are half Republican appointees, half Democratic appointees. Rodel’s current President and CEO is a Democrat, and Rodel’s Vice President and COO is a Republican. The texts that Fellows read cover the ideological spectrum. While the curriculum varies by program, frequently discussed texts include John Winthrop’s City on a Hill Sermon; the Declaration of Independence; the Preamble to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; speeches by leaders from FDR to Ronald Reagan; philosophical texts from Kant, Mill, Aristotle, Burke, and Hayek; and recent theoretical texts by writers such as Francis Fukuyama and Danielle Allen. During the Fellowship, the participants read and discuss between 300-400 pages of material and are led in moderated discussions by scholars and practitioners from both parties.