Robert Ingram was named the interim director of the Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education in an administrative memo Thursday.
Ingram will serve a one-year appointment as interim director starting Aug. 1, according to the memo.
Ingram, a humanities professor at the school, has served as associate director of Hamilton School since 2022, the memo wrote.
His appointment comes after the center’s previous director, William Inboden, was named the sole finalist for the University of Texas at Austin’s executive vice president and provost.
Inboden became the director of the Hamilton School in June 2023, one year after the center was founded. He was a close friend and Senate campaign donor to former University of Florida president Ben Sasse.
According to the announcement, Ingram came to UF from Ohio University, where he spent two decades as a history professor. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2002.
The Hamilton School, formerly the Hamilton Center, opened in 2022 and received $3 million from the state after the Council on Public University Reform lobbied for a civic education center at UF.
UF received taxpayer funds to create the school in 2023, according to the Miami Herald, and it wasn’t at UF’s request.
The Hamilton School is backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sasse. Still a professor of courses at the school, Sasse touted the center as an “important part of UF’s interdisciplinary commitment to rigorous scholarship.”
The center’s mission is to teach classic Western literature, Western ideas and the foundational elements of America’s political history.
The school currently offers two majors: Philosophy, politics, economics and law, and great books & ideas.
Contact Maria Avlonitis at mavlonitis@alligator.org. Follow her on X @MariaAvlonitis.
