Tom Cronin (Stanford University, PhD) was the McHugh Professor of American Institutions and Leadership at Colorado College. He is President Emeritus of Whitman College (1993-2005) and a past Acting President at Colorado College (1991). He has served as President of the Presidency Research Group, President of the Western Political Science Association and on the Executive Council of the American Political Science Association. He has authored and co-authored best-selling text-books on American government and the American presidency. He has won several awards for teaching, advising and for his research, including the American Political Science Association's Charles E. Merriam Award for significant contributions to the art of government.

His latest books are Imagining a Great Republic: Political Novels and the Idea of America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018); Leadership Matters: Unleashing the Power of Paradox (Paradigm Publishers, 2012); Colorado Politics and Policy: Governing a Purple State, co-authored with Robert D. Loevy (University of Nebraska Press, 2012); and The Paradoxes of the American Presidency, 5th edition, co-authored with Michael A. Genovese (Oxford University Press, 2013). He has published many articles in major political science and public policy journals, as well as in Science, Saturday Review, The New York Times Magazine, TV Guide, and The Daily Beast.