Hamilton Gazetteer / Entities / Philip Klinkner

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person

Overview

Philip Alan Klinkner is a political scientist and long-serving member of the Hamilton College Government Department. He joined the department in 1995 and has held the James S. Sherman Professorship of Government, the college’s endowed chair named for the Hamilton alumnus who served as Vice President of the United States under William Howard Taft. Klinkner received his B.A. from Lake Forest College and his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Yale University. He has been a consistent presence in the department across three decades, regularly teaching courses in American politics, political parties and elections, and race and American democracy.

In addition to his teaching role, Klinkner has served in administrative positions, including as Associate Dean of Students (Academic) — a dual role documented in several catalogs from the mid-2000s onward — and as department chair on multiple occasions. He has participated in the college’s Washington, D.C., Program, serving as the program’s faculty director in fall 2016, fall 2017, fall 2022, and 2024–25. His scholarship focuses on race and equality in American democracy, and he regularly taught AFRST 340 / GOVT 340, “Race and American Democracy,” which appears in the curriculum across multiple catalog years.

Relevance to Research

Klinkner represents the contemporary Hamilton Government faculty and is the holder of the James S. Sherman Chair, which directly links the modern department to one of Hamilton’s most notable alumni of the early twentieth century. His career at Hamilton spans from 1995 through at least 2024–25, making him one of the longest-serving faculty members in the current catalog record. His courses on race and American democracy and political parties have been core offerings in the Government curriculum for two decades.

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