About

Dr. Matt Hodgetts (he/him) is an Instructor in the Department of Political Science, along with its current Director of Undergraduate Studies, and a co-chair of CWRU CAN (Climate Action Network). In 2025, he completed his terms as the George B. Mayer Chair in Urban and Environmental Studies and as a Faculty Affiliate of the Baker-Nord Institute for the Humanities.

Dr. Hodgetts works in the field of environmental political thought (EPT). His current book project, co-authored with Kevin McGravey (Merrimack College), examines how the treatment and protection of speech in the United States has historically hindered but has the potential to promote climate action. Portions of the project appear in Environmental Values and Ethics, Policy & Environment. His next project explores the importance of hope and the place of climate utopianism within activist discourses on climate action.

Dr. Hodgetts was co-PI on the now-completed Cleveland Regional Decarbonization Framework (CRDF), a multi-institution project led by CWRU and funded by a major grant from the City of Cleveland to assist in the development of a Comprehensive Climate Action Plan for the Cleveland-Elyria MSA to be submitted to the EPA in 2025. His project role was co-lead, with Cyrus Taylor (Physics), of the Climate Science Working Group (CSWG), a team of undergraduate and graduate students that developed a course on Regional Climate Action Planning drawing on and in support of the CRDF.

Dr. Hodgetts has been nominated for both the Carl F. Wittke Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2023/24 and 2024/25) and the J. Bruce Jackson, M.D. Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Mentoring (2021/22). He has additionally been a Learning Fellow (Spring 2020) with the University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education (UCITE).

Dr. Hodgetts regularly teaches both Introduction to International Relations (POSC 172) and Introduction to Comparative Politics (POSC 160). Every academic year, he teaches either Global Politics of the Climate Crisis (ESTD/POSC 388) or Environmental Justice (ESTD/POSC 387). The development and teaching of the latter course is the subject of a book chapter for an edited volume on pedagogy and EPT that is currently under review. He also teaches a rotation of American Political Thought (POSC 352), Political Ideologies (POSC 355), and Utopian and Dystopian Political Visions (POSC 350). The development of the latter course was supported by a UCITE Course Innovation Grant (2024/25).

Dr. Hodgetts received his PhD in Political Science from Brown University. He also holds a MA in Political Science from McGill University and a BA (Hons) in Political Studies and Philosophy from Queen’s University, both in his native Canada. Before joining the department as a Visiting Assistant Professor in July 2018, he previously taught at Clark, Roger Williams, and Brown Universities, and worked as a research assistant at a public health agency.