Staff
Peter Wyatt Wood
President
pwood@nas.org
Peter Wood is an anthropologist and former provost. He was appointed president of the NAS in January 2009. Before that he served as NAS’s executive director (2007-2008), and as provost of The King’s College in New York City (2005-2007).
Dr. Wood was a tenured member of the Anthropology Department at Boston University, where he also held a variety of administrative positions, including associate provost and president’s chief of staff. He also oversaw the university’s scholarly publications and served as acting university librarian.
He received his Ph.D. in anthropology in 1987 from the University of Rochester. His dissertation, Quoting Heaven, examined the emergence of an American folk religion and pilgrimage center in rural Wisconsin. His undergraduate degree is from Haverford College (1975) and he has a master’s degree in library science from Rutgers University (1977).
Dr. Wood is the author of A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now (Encounter Books, 2007) and of Diversity: The Invention of a Concept (Encounter Books, 2003) which won the Caldwell Award for Leadership in Higher Education from the John Locke Foundation. These books extend his anthropological interest in examining emergent themes in modern American culture.
In addition to his scholarly work, Dr. Wood has published several hundred articles in print and online journals, such as Partisan Review and National Review Online, and he blogs twice weekly for the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Ashley Thorne
Director of Communications
thorne@nas.org
Ashley joined the NAS staff as director of communications in 2008. She received her undergraduate degree in politics, philosophy, and economics from The King’s College in 2007. In 2010 she published a chapter, “Ducking the Coffins: How I Became an Edu-Con,” in an anthology edited by Jonah Goldberg, Proud to Be Right.
Glenn M. Ricketts
Public Affairs Director
ricketts@nas.org
Public Affairs Director Glenn Ricketts joined the NAS staff in 1989. He was the founding president of the NAS New Jersey state affiliate, and served for 20 years on the NAS board of directors. A graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He is also professor of political science and U.S. history at Raritan Valley Community College in Somerville New Jersey, where he has taught since 1982.
Ashley M. Chandler
Development Coordinator
chandler@nas.org
Ashley joined the NAS staff as development coordinator in 2011. She came with eight years of experience teaching the humanities at Annapolis Area Christian School and The Geneva School of Manhattan. In 2008 she received a Master of Arts in Liberal Arts at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD. In her spare time, she has volunteered on several political campaigns, often raising money for candidates.
Carol Iannone
Editor-at-Large, Academic Questions
Felicia Sanzari Chernesky
Managing Editor, Academic Questions
chernesky@nas.org
Felicia Sanzari Chernesky returned to the position of managing editor of Academic Questions in October 2007. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in English, majoring in American poetry, with a minor in French literature and a concentration in Latin. She began working for the National Association of Scholars in 1987, and served as an assistant director, editor of the NAS newsletter, NAS Update, and managing editor of Academic Questions. In 1993 she left full-time employment to begin raising a family. While remaining an independent consultant to the NAS, she also freelanced as an editor and writer. A published poet, she is pursuing an MFA in Poetry with an Emphasis in Formal Verse at Western State College of Colorado. She is also active in the New Jersey chapter of the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and is represented by The Bent Agency.
Robert L Jackson
Assoc. Prof. of English Ed.
jackson@nas.org
Robert Jackson is an associate professor of English and education at The King's College (New York), where he developed a concentration on the 2500-year tradition of the liberal arts. His research focuses on the debates in the early twentieth century between progressives and classicists over the direction of public schools. He also works on the integration of poetry and the arts across the liberal arts curriculum.
Wanda Cooley
Operations Director
cooley@nas.org
Wanda J. Cooley has over twenty years of experience as an administrative assistant, working within both private and public sectors. She received her associate’s degree in business administration from Meadows Draughn College. Wanda became a citizen of New Jersey after leaving her native city, New Orleans, due to Hurricane Katrina. She joined the National Association of Scholars as Secretary in November 2005 and became Director of Operations in 2011.
John Irving
Technical Coordinator
irving@nas.org
John Irving has been with the NAS since 1993. During most of that time, he worked on the quarterly journal, Academic Questions. He also took care of the web site for a number of years. Since 2009 he has been technical coordinator for the association. John graduated from Kenyon College in 1971. After a stint in the army in Southeast Asia, he came back to work as a reporter/editor at several trade publications in New York City. He lives in Princeton with his wife and three children.
Board of Directors
Steve Balch
Chairman
balch@nas.org
Stephen H. Balch was the founding president and is currently the chairman of the National Association of Scholars. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California and was for fourteen years a member of the faculty of the Department of Government and Public Administration of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, part of the City University of New York. In 2007 he received the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush. In 2009 he was the recipient of the Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award from the American Conservative Union Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.
Daniel Asia
Evelyn Avery
Mark Bauerlein
Jay A. Bergman
Peter Berkowitz
Philip J. Clements
George W. Dent, Jr.
Candace de Russy
Kenneth O. Doyle
David Gordon
Gail L. Heriot
Christina Jeffrey
Robert C. Koons
Barry Latzer
Thomas K. Lindsay
Herbert I. London
Wight Martindale
David D. Mulroy
Anne D. Neal
B. Nelson Ong
Norman Rogers
Michael Schwartz
Philip Siegelman
Barry Smith
Sandra Stotsky
Richard Vedder
Bradley C.S. Watson
Keith Whitaker
R. H. Winnick
Current Board of Advisors
John Agresto
Jacques Barzun
Walter Berns
Edwin J. Delattre
Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Eugene D. Genovese
Robert P. George
Gertrude Himmelfarb
Paul Hollander
Harry V. Jaffa
Donald Kagan
Richard D. Lamm
Leslie Lenkowsky
Harvey C. Mansfield
Milton J. Rosenberg
John R. Silber
Christina Hoff Sommers
Shelby Steele
Stephan Thernstrom
Edward O. Wilson
James Q. Wilson
Former Members of the Board of Advisors
James David Barber
Irving Louis Horowitz
Robert Jastrow
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
Irving Kristol
Seymour Martin Lipset
Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones
Nelson W. Polsby
Willard V. Quine
Leo Raditsa
Stanley Rothman
Ernest van den Haag
