Arnold Schwarzenegger Wants to Teach College Students Post-Partisanship

Almost 30 years ago when Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator cyborg delivered his most famous line, "I'll be back," no one would've predicted that the actor and former California governor's third act would be as a university professor. But now Schwarzenegger is launching the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy with the goal of "promoting a new era of post-partisanship."

The institute, which Schwarzenegger is funding, will be housed at USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy and will target five key areas: education?; energy and environment?; fiscal and economic policy; health and human wellness?; and political reform. "We should teach people that they can have strong, strong beliefs. If you are a Republican, you should keep your beliefs. If you are a Democrat, you should keep your beliefs," says Schwarzenegger. However he believes students need to learn how to solve problems in those sectors in a way that seems to have been largely forgotten in our society: working together in a constructive way with people with whom we disagree.

While Schwarzenegger's heart is in the right place, there's no denying that the Golden State was embroiled in epic bipartisan gridlock during his gubernatorial tenure. One could argue he should be taking the classes on achieving post-partisanship, not teaching them. In fairness, though, he did make some good progress on climate and energy policy in California. The Academinator's lectures start later this year.

Photo via (cc) Flickr user Zero Emission Resource Organisation

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