Jay Barth

Jay Barth, appointed in March 2022, is the third director of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. A native of Arkansas, Dr. Barth gained his Ph.D. in political science from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and B.A. from Hendrix College. From the start of 2020 until his arrival at the Clinton Library, Barth was chief education officer for the City of Little Rock, coordinating the city’s work to support education from birth through higher education. Barth is also the M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Emeritus Professor of Politics at Hendrix College where he taught for 26 years including service as the college’s director of civic engagement projects. In 2007, Barth was named Arkansas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), in 2014 was named winner of the Southern Political Science Association’s Diane Blair Award for Outstanding Achievement in Politics and Government, in 2018 received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Arkansas Political Science Association, and gained the 2019 Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of State Boards of Education. In 2000-01, Barth received the Steiger Congressional Fellowship from the American Political Science Association and served on the staff of the late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone (MN) working on education and civil rights policy. From 2012 to 2019, Barth was a member of the Arkansas State Board of Education chairing that body for two years. He also holds and has held a number of leadership roles in national, state, and local nonprofit organizations.