Harris Wofford

Since helping to launch the Peace Corps in 1961, Harris Wofford has been at the forefront of the nation’s service movement. Former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and most recently CEO of the Corporation for National Service, Wofford has dedicated much of his life to the goal of making citizen service a common expectation and experience for all Americans. He played a key role in both crafting and working to pass the trailblazing legislation that created AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National Service and was a key figure in The Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, which launched America’s Promise. He joined the board of directors of America’s Promise in March 2001 and was elected chairman in January 2002. Wofford also serves on the boards of Youth Service America and the Points of Light Foundation.

In recognition of Wofford’s leadership and commitment to service, University of Maryland President C.D. Mote recently been appointed him Professor of Practice; he will work with the Democracy Collaborative on campus. He also was recently recognized for his lifelong advocacy for service by the Independent Sector, a national association of nonprofit organizations, which honored him with its John W. Gardner Leadership Award. This award recognizes Americans working in or with the voluntary sector whose work has had national or international impact contributing to the common good.

In the 1970s, Wofford formed and chaired a panel on national service, which in 1979 produced the landmark report Youth and the Needs of the Nation. In 1987, as Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Labor and Industry, he established and led Governor Robert Casey’s Office of Citizen Service, which promoted school-based service-learning and youth corps. He also managed the Pennsylvania Conservation Corps.

While in Governor Casey’s cabinet, Wofford worked with then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton and a bipartisan working group of the National Governors Association, along with a group of senators, to develop what would become the National and Community Service Act of 1990, signed into law by President Bush. In 1991, as a newly-elected senator, Wofford collaborated with then-minority leader Bob Dole to secure passage of the National Civilian Community Corps, now an integral part of AmeriCorps. Then in 1993, Senator Wofford worked with President Clinton’s task force in both drafting and passing the National and Community Service Trust Act, which created AmeriCorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Wofford played a key role in the civil rights movement in the 1950s, working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King. Under President Eisenhower, Wofford was counsel to the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh of Notre Dame on the first U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In the Kennedy years, he was a special assistant to the President and chaired the subcabinet group on civil rights.

While on the White House staff, Wofford helped Sargent Shriver plan and organize the Peace Corps; in 1962, he became Peace Corps’ Special Representative to Africa and director of its large Ethiopia program. In the Johnson Administration, he took on the post of the Peace Corps’ associate director.

Wofford is no stranger to academia. From 1970-78, he was president of Bryn Mawr College, and from 1966-70, he was president of the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury. He was associate professor of law at the University of Notre Dame Law School (1956-1966). He is an alumnus of the University of Chicago (B.A., 1948) and both Howard University and Yale Law School (J.D., 1954). He has practiced law at Covington and Burling (1954-58) and Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis (1979-86) law firms.

He is the author of numerous publications, including Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties (1980). In 1950, Senator Wofford and his late wife Clare co-authored the book India Afire, which reported on the first year of independence in India and urged the civil rights movement in America to adopt Gandhi’s strategy of non-violent direct action. Martin Luther King Jr. used to say that Harris Wofford was the only lawyer who would help him go to jail instead of using all the tricks of the trade to keep him out.

In 2000, Wofford convened and chaired the Working Group on Human Needs and Faith-Based Community Initiatives, which issued the report Finding Common Ground. He also served on the National Commission on Service Learning and helped draft its report Learning in Deed.

Harris Wofford has a daughter, two sons, and four grandsons. He resides in Washington, D.C.