About Sam Schwartz

I may be an unlikely person to start a website on restoring public trust in higher education — most assistant professors are focused solely on their scholarship and teaching — but I'm also unusually familiar with the politics of university governance for an assistant professor, and the complexities of running large, multi-stakeholder organizations. As a graduate student, I wrote bipartisan legislation signed into law by Governor Tina Kotek in 2023 which added a voting graduate student seat to the governing boards of Oregon's public universities.¹

Later that year, I was appointed by Gov. Kotek to the governing board which oversees the State of Oregon's shared website infrastructure. The board provided oversight of the government systems responsible for processing hundreds of different revenue streams (from fishing permits, to teaching licenses, to fines paid online); systems which collectively process billions of dollars of state government transactions on a multi-million dollar operating budget. I was fortunate to serve alongside multiple state lawmakers and senior technology executives as fellow board members before moving to Wisconsin.

I am also a graduate of Utah State University and the University of Oregon, which, at the time of my graduation from each, sat among the top 10 public research universities for the most politically conservative and politically liberal/progressive student bodies, respectively. I can attest that both universities are filled with thoughtful students, both have areas of collective blind spots, and that, as a product of both universities, I probably have more ideological blind spots than most.

Most importantly, I remain committed to the idea that respectful radical candor among individuals different from each other, who nonetheless have built up trust in one another, is the pavement on our road to a more perfect union. I hope you'll join me on this winding road towards my dream of restored public trust in education.