Richard Foglesong

Richard E. (Rick) Foglesong is an expert on Florida and U.S. politics, New Urbanism and the politics of urban development, Hispanic politics, and the history of Walt Disney World and the Reedy Creek Improvement District. He holds the George and Harriet Cornell Chair in Politics at Rollins College, where he teaches in the college’s undergraduate program in Political Science and its master's program in Planning in Civic Urbanism.

Dr. Foglesong is originally from Enid, Oklahoma. He earned his M.A. in urban affairs and his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Chicago, where he was a Ford Foundation Urban Fellow. He received his B.A., majoring in History and Political Science from Drury University. He is a distinguished and tenured professor of Politics at Rollins College, having joined the faculty in 1984. He is the George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Chair of Politics, and has offered insight on elections and political questions to local affiliates. He has also taught at UCLA, where he was the Harvey Perloff Professor of Urban Planning; at Hong Kong University, where he was a Fulbright Scholar; and at Amherst College, where he began his teaching career.

Dr. Foglesong’s latest book is Immigrant Prince: Mel Martinez and the American Dream. It relates the remarkable personal story of Martinez, the nation’s first Cuban- born U.S. senator, to the rise of Hispanic political power, the politics of immigration reform, and the continuing resonance of the Florida and American dreams.

His previous book, Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando, was published by Yale University Press in 2001. It was funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and drew praise in the New York Times and New Yorker, among other publications.

He is also the author of Planning the Capitalist City, a history of American urban planning published by Princeton University Press, and The Politics of Economic Adjustment. At Rollins, Dr. Foglesong was the first recipient of the Bornstein Scholar Award, which honors a faculty member who has brought national recognition to the college. He has also been president of the faculty at Rollins.

He is frequently quoted in print sources and interviewed on radio and television on topics ranging from Walt Disney World to healthcare reform to local, state, and national elections. He has served on a long list of local boards and commissions as well. Currently, he is vice-chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee for Metroplan, the transportation planning agency for the three-county Orlando metropolitan area.