Robert Hollister

Visiting Faculty Fellow
Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Tufts University
robert.hollister@tufts.edu

Education

BA, Antioch College; MCP, Harvard University; PhD, MIT

Expertise

Public policy, leadership studies, higher education policy, citizen participation and civil society.

Biography

Robert M. Hollister is a Professor in the Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences and a Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Pardee Center for the 2011-2012 academic year.

Prof. Hollister was the founding Dean of Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service from 2000-2011, and the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Professor of Citizenship and Public Service. After more than 10 years as a faculty member in MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, he joined Tufts in 1980 as the founding Chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, and subsequently served as Director of the university’s Lincoln Filene Center for Citizenship and Public Affairs and as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Prof. Hollister is a pioneer in the engaged university movement, which remains a focus of his research and writing. In 2005, he co-founded the Talloires Network, a global coalition that has grown to number 180 universities in 59 countries working together to strengthen their civic engagement missions. Also in 2005, in partnership with Campus Compact, he initiated The Research University Civic Engagement Network, an alliance of 40 major US research universities.

A specialist in the leadership and management of non-profit organizations and in citizen participation in public affairs, Prof. Hollister is co-author of The Engaged University: International Perspectives on Civic Engagement; Development Politics, and co-editor and contributing author of Governing, Leading and Managing Nonprofit Organizations; Cities of the Mind; Neighborhood Policy and Planning, and Neighborhood Health Centers.