Ashland University welcomed Adam Carrington as the new associate professor of Political Science and a Co-Director in the Ashbrook Center.  

Carrington will teach two kinds of classes that touch on American history but also on broader studies and interactions in Western history.  

One is American political institutions that will focus on courts, presidencies, and separations of powers.  

The other will be about developing and teaching some courses on the intersection of faith and political thought.  

“I didn’t come to Ashland as an undergrad intending to be a teacher. My father was in public education, so I didn’t want to do education because I wanted to do something different than my father. One night I’m in a class with Peter W. Schramm who passed away a while ago but still looms large here. I had to give a five-minute presentation,” Carrington said on how he decided to choose his field.  

Schramm encouraged him to talk to other students and ask them questions.  

What was supposed to take five minutes ended up taking 45 to 50 minutes.  

After Schramm told him to forget what you think you should be doing, which was to go to DC and be speech writer. Schramm instead said to go to grad school to be a teacher. Carrington didn’t immediately agree, he started to realize his professor was right.  

“I’m thankful he put me in that direction, now I can’t imagine doing anything other than something like teaching,” Carrington said.  

He looks forward to developing classes where students who are religious can discuss their faith with perpetual problems in politics. For those who aren’t religious it could become a way they can understand why people think that way.  

Carrington hopes for mutual respect between people of different beliefs and to facilitate that between students.  

“I had professors open up to me that there was a joy and a fascination in not just working your own mind but being a mind in a community of minds,” Carrington said.  

When first coming to Ashland he recalls school being like a job, to get a credential or a degree. Ultimately there was an understanding that students were not just here to get jobs. Carrington realized that it’s more of looking at what it means to be human, a citizen, and to be friends.  

“Maybe students can come out saying I know a little bit better about what it means to be a human, to be a part of a community,” Carrington said.  

He hopes to be one small part of inspiring some students to think about those big questions and to take advance of doing that for a few years in a community here together with other students and other professors.