Thomas Jefferson’s Role in Transforming Higher Education Curriculum in the United States

Abstract

For decades, public administrative scholars and historians have maintained that while Thomas Jefferson had an extraordinary substantive mind, he was not a formative figure within the intellectual, institutional, and constitutional development of public administration theory and practice. Thoroughly investigating Jefferson’s early political career does reveal that he was not interested in the daily operations of government, but as time progressed his lengthy career in public service began to transform his opinions on the relationship between good government and good administration and how sound administrative practice complemented many of the republican values espoused in The Federalist. Upon a careful examination of Jefferson’s retirement years, when he dedicated the remainder of his life to establishing the University of Virginia, the administrative genius of his mind takes center stage. In this role, Jefferson not only created Virginia’s first public institution for higher education but also dramatically reformed liberal arts curriculum standards for colleges and universities across the nation. Twenty-first century public administration scholars and practitioners should welcome this exceptional contribution to the intellectual history of American public administration with openness and with a renewed commitment to the institutional legitimacy of our field.