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Homepage of Dr. Paul Rich
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Homepage
Earlier Chronology
Brief C.V.
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House of Dr. Paul Rich In Mexico
Gardens Donated by Dr. Paul Rich
Who's Who Link Paul Rich is adjunct professor of public policy at George Mason University, a Visiting Fellow at The Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the President of The Policy Studies Organization, the scholarly organization for political and social policy scholarship to which more than3000 universities and institutions belong.
He is Past President of the International Society Phi Beta Delta, Chancellor of the General Grand Chapter of Phi Sigma Omega, and Chair of the Library Committee of the American Political Science Association.
Much of Dr. Rich's career has been involved with the establishment and nurturing of universities outside of the United States. He went to Saudi Arabia as Adviser in the Ministry of Higher Education and Professor in the University of Riyadh, now King Saud University. He then spent more than a decade in the Emirate of Qatar as head of supervisory training programs in the Ministry of Education and Culture and adviser to the then Crown Prince.
He is a member of the Arts Club of Washington, one of the oldest organizations in the capital, whose clubhouse is the historic James Monroe mansion which President Monroe used as a residence after the British burnt the White House. Since its founding he has helped with the annual summer symposium on Fremasonry hosted by the Grand Lodge of California and is a donor to the Henry Wilson Coil Masonic Library in San Francisco. He has also donated to the libraries of Essex Institute, Eton College, Tonbridge (his old school in England), Harvard, Stanford, and the University of the Americas.
Dr. Rich has worked closely with several famous Mexican artists to develop gardens and collections at the University of the Americas. Particularly noteworthy are the exhibits of the work of Leonardo Nierman, Eugenia Perez, and Heriberto Juarez. The collections are integrated into an ambitious landscaping project.
A major project of Dr. Rich and his students was developing a website to serve the region near the University of the Americas, promoting tourist visits and local business.
At UDLAP, Dr. Rich and his students helped develop such projects as the Currier and Ives Room and Cervantes collection and Quixote Cafe at Gaos College, the French and Japanese Rooms and Torreador Cafe at Bernal College, the Rare Books Room and the Canada Room in the main library, the Salon of the Americas lecture hall, and the university outdoor amphitheatre and many outdoor areas.
Dr. Rich's house and gardens are now a study center and place for reflection and research, and he hopes to endow them for that purpose and has provided for their funding in his will, which will be administered by some of his old students. He has been considerably influenced in developing the gardens by those at Sissinghurt Castle in England.
As a Harvard graduate, a major inspiration to him has been the various houses donated to Harvard for studies. They include Harvard's Hellenic Center in Washington, D.C. and of course Dumbarton Oaks, also in Washington. Dumbarton Oaks was the work of Mildred and Robert Woods Bliss, who gave their home to Harvard. Dumbarton Oaks now has resources in Byzantine studies, the history of landscape architecture, and Pre-Columbian studies. The gardens there were designed by Beatrix Farrand and are open to the public.
A third Harvard house is perhaps the most remarkable. I Tatti in Italy belonged to the historian and art critic Bernard Berenson. He lived there from 1900 until his death in 1959. In his will, he bequeathed the I Tatti estate, located on the outskirts of Florence, and his books, photographs, and works of art to Harvard University, from which he had received an A.B. in 1887. He hoped that providing such a place would increase understanding of the values by which civilizations develop and survive.
Much of Dr. Rich's recent research and scholarship concerns the part that voluntary organizations play in democratization and civil society. In particular, he is one of the world's most widely published scholars on Freemasonry and kindred groups. Several of his students and research associates have become in their own right voices in the field of political legitimacy, ritual and symbolism, and political culture.
Not all his work concerns secret societies and among his books are a lengthy analysis of the rise and fall of British rule in the Middle East entitled The Invasions of the Gulf, two volumes about the British Empire, Elixir of Empire and Chains of Empire, and a new three volume edited collection of recent work on world policy studies.
Dr. Rich was the sponsor of the University of the Americas chess club, and helped to develop both an outdoor playing area with giant pieces, as well as an indoor facility.
Dr. Rich has spent periods at Stanford's Hoover Institution. www.hoover.org
Dr. Rich is a life member of St. John's Lodge in Boston, which is the oldest masonic lodge in the Western Hemisphere, and for a time was its Junior Warden: http://www.angelfire.com/ma2/stjohns1733/
Dr. Rich is currently the Editor for the Middle East Classics Series, published by Lexington Books. Click here for more information.
Recently, Dr. Paul Rich, the keynote speaker, with dignataries at the Middle East Librarian's meeting in Qatar, 2008.
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