Through her work teaching students in the TFAS summer and Capital Semester programs, Anne Bradley does her part to make sure future leaders are receiving a solid education in the principles of free-market economics. “Free-market economics needs people who are not only passionate, but good articulators of ideas,” said Bradley. “Journalists have a knack for story-telling, so the free-market world needs great journalists to help tell the important stories about economic freedom and why we are at a crossroads.”
According to Bradley, her primary goal as a TFAS teacher is to give students a new way of thinking about the world around them. “Exposing them to the economic toolkit will enable them to better process how they should think about important policy questions that will impact their lives and the lives of everyone in our country,” said Bradley.
While Bradley is currently teaching a Capital Semester course, she’s not new to TFAS. Her first experience was serving as a teaching assistant at the TFAS institute in Prague in 2001. Since then she went on to teach in the ICPES program this past summer and now is on the faculty of the TFAS Capital Semester. “TFAS has been great at selecting high-caliber students who seem very interested in learning about liberty and the ideas of a free society, even though many of them are new to economic thinking,” said Bradley.
An Alexandria, Va. native, Bradley received her bachelor’s degree in economics from James Madison University and then her Ph.D. in economics at George Mason University in 2006. Bradley wrote her dissertation on the economics of terrorism with a case study in Al-Qaeda. She then went on to work as a terrorism analyst at the CIA for several years. Today, she works at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics.
As a graduate of George Mason University, Bradley says she is excited about the new partnership between TFAS and GMU. “George Mason is the academic pulse of free-market thinking and has such an incredible infrastructure that TFAS can partner with for its programs,” said Bradley. “From the Mercatus Center at Mason to the amazing line-up of faculty and the department chair Dan Houser, I think Mason is going to bring new and exciting things to the TFAS programs.”
According to Bradley, it’s critical for journalism students to learn about economics. “For the most part, journalists don’t know any economics and that influences the way they view and proscribe policy outcomes,” said Professor Bradley. “I think journalists can really help the free-market economic movement create a sense of urgency with the public that we have so far been unable to do.”