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Public Affairs Faculty

Leslie Lenkowsky
Professor, Public Affairs and Philanthropic Studies
Director of Graduate Programs for the Center on Philanthropy

Ph.D., Harvard University, 1982

In January 2004, Leslie Lenkowsky rejoined the faculty of Indiana University after stepping down as chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate in October 2001. The Corporation, created in 1993, engages morethan a million Americans of all ages in improving local communities through three initiatives: AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and the National Senior Service Corps.

A leading scholar on philanthropy and a former board member of the Corporation, Prof. Lenkowsky is currently at Indiana University, where he is affiliated with the School of Public and EnvironmentalAffairs and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Prior to joining the Indiana University faculty in 1997, Prof. Lenkowsky had served for seven years as president of Hudson Institute, an internationally renowned public policy research institution headquartered in Indianapolis. During Prof. Lenkowsky’s tenure there, Hudson developed an innovative set of programs aimed at providing practical solutions to the nation’s most pressing domestic problems,such as crime, welfare dependency, and inadequate educational skills.

Among his other positions, Prof. Lenkowsky has served as president of the Institute for Educational Affairs, deputy director of the United States Information Agency, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University, director of the Philanthropy Roundtable, and director of research at the Smith Richardson Foundation. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to be one of the founding directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, Prof. Lenkowsky had previously been named by President George H.W. Bush to the Commission on National and Community Service. He has also served on a number of for-profit and non-profit boards.

A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, Prof. Lenkowsky received his doctorate from Harvard University. His writing has appeared in such publications as Commentary, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, The Public Interest, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the Indianapolis Business Journal, and he has spoken frequently to educational and philanthropic groups throughout the United States and overseas. He has received honorary degrees from Franklin and Marshall College, John Carroll University, and Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, and in the summer of 2007 was the Heloise Waislitz Fellow in Philanthropy at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Philanthropy and Social Investment, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia.