Bruce Cole is the President and CEO of the American Revolution Center at Valley Forge, the world’s first museum and education center dedicated to teaching the story of the American Revolution.
He was born in Ohio and attended Case Western Reserve University. He earned his master's degree from Oberlin College and his doctorate from Bryn Mawr College. He is also the recipient of nine honorary doctorate degrees. For two years he was the William E. Suida Fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence. He has held fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, Kress Foundation, American Philosophical Society, and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is a corresponding member of the Accademia Senese degli Intronati, the oldest learned society in Europe, and a founder and former co-president of the Association for Art History.
He and his wife Doreen live in the District of Columbia and have two grown children.
Previously, Cole served as the eighth chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). As NEH chairman, Cole launched We the People, an initiative to encourage the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. Under Cole's leadership the NEH's budget increased for research, preservation, education, and public programs on American history and culture and for the study of culture in other lands and in earlier civilizations.
Cole came to the Endowment in December 2001 from Indiana University in Bloomington where he was Distinguished Professor of Art History and Professor of Comparative Literature. In 2008 he received the President’s Medal from the University for his “excellence in service, achievement and teaching.”
Appointed by President George W. Bush, Cole was chosen for a second term in 2005, a reappointment unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate. Cole’s connection with the Endowment dates back to his receiving an NEH fellowship to research early Florentine painting. He subsequently served as a panelist in NEH's peer review system, and then as a member for seven years of the National Council on the Humanities, a presidentially appointed 26-member advisory board to NEH.
In November 2008, President Bush awarded Cole the Presidential Citizens Medal “for his work to strengthen our national memory and ensure that our country’s heritage is passed on to future generations.” The medal is one of the highest honors the President can confer upon a civilian, second only to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Earlier in 2008, Cole was decorated Knight of the Grand Cross, the highest honor of the Republic of Italy.
Cole has written fourteen books, many of them about the Renaissance. They include:
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