Peters will not arrive alone in name only. He will be appointed to the Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Endowed Chair in Practical Politics, a position currently held by Robert Shrum, the center’s founding director, who is retiring after years at the helm. Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist whose career included some of the most consequential campaign battles of the late twentieth century, built the center around the idea that students learn politics best from the people who actually practice it. Peters will share leadership of the center with Republican strategist Mike Murphy, who remains co-director. That arrangement is believed to make the Center for the Political Future the only university political center in the country jointly led by a Democrat and a Republican, a structural commitment to bipartisanship that distinguishes it from the many university institutes that study politics from a single ideological vantage point.

The center, founded in 2018, has grown into one of the most visible civic institutions at USC. Its programming brings political leaders, campaign strategists, journalists and policymakers from across the ideological spectrum to campus, where they engage directly with undergraduates in public forums, classroom settings and smaller working sessions. Through its fellows program, its calendar of public events and its affiliation with the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, the center gives students firsthand exposure to the mechanics of campaigns, governance and public policy. It also provides internships, scholarships and professional development opportunities designed to move students from the audience to the arena. The underlying theory is straightforward: if the next generation of political professionals is trained in an environment where disagreement is civil and compromise is treated as craft rather than betrayal, some of that culture may follow them into Washington.

Peters brings to that mission a legislative record that is unusually well documented. Now in his second Senate term after three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, he has been recognized by the nonpartisan Center for Effective Lawmaking as the most effective U.S. senator in each of the last three Congresses. The ranking is not an honorific; it is a statistical assessment of how often a lawmaker’s bills advance, attract cosponsors from both parties and ultimately become law. Notably, Peters first earned the top ranking while his party held the minority, a feat no senator had accomplished in more than fifty years. During the 117th Congress, he authored nineteen bipartisan stand-alone bills that were signed into law, the most by any senator in a single Congress in more than four decades. Those numbers matter for a center whose core message is that cross-party work still produces results.

His own description of the move frames it as a culmination rather than a departure. “I see this as a capstone to my years in public service and an opportunity to help prepare the next generation to take the reins,” Peters said in the announcement. “CPF has done a terrific job bringing people with different perspectives together. I’m excited to build on Bob Shrum’s accomplishments and work with Mike Murphy to encourage more young people to get involved in our democracy and show that people who disagree can still find common ground and get things done.” The statement echoes the center’s founding logic, but it also reflects the practical style that defined Peters’ Senate career, which leaned toward infrastructure, cybersecurity, government efficiency and Great Lakes restoration, issues where coalition-building across the aisle was a requirement rather than an option.

The appointment also carries a geographic dimension. Peters plans to expand the center’s presence in Washington, D.C., using USC’s Capital Campus as a base for courses and programs that connect students more directly with policymakers and the institutions of government. He will divide his time between Washington and Los Angeles, teaching at both campuses, while working to bring USC faculty and their research closer to the people who make federal policy. For a university with growing ambitions in the capital, the arrangement effectively converts a retiring senator’s institutional knowledge into a permanent curricular asset. Students in Los Angeles will encounter him in the classroom; students in Washington will encounter the machinery of government with a former insider as their guide, an experience few undergraduate programs can replicate.

USC Dornsife Dean James Bullock framed the hire in terms of what it models for students. “Gary Peters brings an extraordinary combination of public service, bipartisan leadership and real experience getting things done in Washington,” Bullock said. “He has spent his career showing that you can hold strong political convictions and still work productively with people who see the world differently. I’m especially excited about what his leadership will make possible for our students, both in Los Angeles and in Washington.” The dean’s emphasis on conviction alongside cooperation reflects a deliberate distinction: the center does not ask students to moderate their beliefs, but to hold them in a way that leaves room for negotiation, evidence and the ordinary friction of democratic lawmaking.

Endorsements from across the aisle accompanied the announcement, and they carry particular weight given the source. Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who served alongside Peters on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, described him as “a consistent, bipartisan partner who was always willing to work across the aisle and deliver real results for the American people.” Scott added, “I know he will carry that same thoughtful, collaborative spirit with him to USC, and I look forward to seeing what this new partnership produces.” For Murphy, the co-director who will now share the stage with a former committee colleague from the opposing party, the fit is professional as much as philosophical. “Gary Peters is that rare thing: a principled politician who also knows how to get things done,” Murphy said. “I very much look forward to working with him as we grow the center’s mission to teach and inspire USC students to embrace the idea that civility and reasoned compromise are far from the enemy of politics; they’re essential to turning political disagreement into practical results.”

For Peters personally, the move represents a return to higher education rather than an experiment in it. Before his congressional career, he taught strategic management and finance at Oakland University and Wayne State University, and he later held the Robert and Marjorie Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government at Central Michigan University. That teaching history, combined with nearly two decades in Congress spanning both chambers, gives him an unusual dual fluency in academic and legislative cultures. “I’ve learned a lot over the years about what it takes to get things done at all levels of government, and I look forward to sharing my experience with students,” Peters said. “But I also expect to learn from them.” As universities nationwide grapple with how to sustain open political dialogue on polarized campuses, USC’s bet is that the most persuasive lesson in democratic possibility comes not from a syllabus but from a practitioner who spent six Congresses proving that the system, worked carefully, still functions.

Subject of Research: Appointment of U.S. Senator Gary Peters as director of USC's bipartisan Center for the Political Future

Article Title: US Sen. Gary Peters to lead USC Dornsife’s Center for the Political Future

Article References: US Sen. Gary Peters to lead USC Dornsife’s Center for the Political Future. (n.d.). Original publication

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Keywords: Gary Peters, USC Dornsife, Center for the Political Future, bipartisanship, Mike Murphy, Robert Shrum, political leadership, civic education, U.S. Senate, higher education, civil dialogue, practical politics