About Me

Alan M. Kirshner is a professor of political science and history at Ohlone College, Fremont, California. He received his B.A., cum laude, from Hofstra University where he was awarded the History Department's book prize as their outstanding student. He received his M.A. from the City University of New York and his Ph.D. from New York University with a GPA of 3.97 out of 4 points for 75 units of course work. He also studied at Ohio State University, The University of the Americas and The University of Brussels. Before coming to Ohlone College, he taught upper division and graduate courses at The University of West Florida. At The University of West Florida he taught Mexican History in the Latin American History Department and worked with the Education Department to supervise student teachers in the local High Schools. Professor Kirshner started his teaching career in New York with ninth grade students at East Northport Junior High School and taught tenth grade World Civilization for two years at Mamaroneck High School.

Professor Kirshner has written extensively on social movements, ideology, and politics. He has authored four books (one was translated and printed in Mexico. His textbook In the Course of Human Events is now in its sixth edition. Dr. Kirshner has published fourteen articles (two appeared in anthologies). His other scholarly activities include some thirty papers delivered to diverse organizations. Sporadically, he has been involved in local, state, and national politics.

A renaissance person, Professor Kirshner, a former collegiate gymnast, a competitive bodybuilder and a national and world record holder in powerlifting, continues to produce award winning photographs. Many of these photographs, some of which have appeared in national magazines, can be viewed in his textbook, In the Course of Human Events: Essays in American Government. Professor Kirshner has national licenses to referee powerlifting, soccer and chess. He also holds certificates to coach youth soccer and scholastic chess. In the 1980's, Dr. Kirshner's Mission Muscle Factory was well known for its insistance that none of its members use steroids and for the many team titles it obtained in powerlifting. Dr. Kirshner, during that era, became a strength coach for many track and field athletes. One of his trainees competed in the 1984 Olympics. The Maccabi Sports Committee of the Greater San Francisco Bay Area named Professor Kirshner the coach of the 1996 Track and Field Team attending the Maccabi Regional Games in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1997, he traveled with the Bay Area Maccabi Team to Milwaukee as the coach of the under 17 girls soccer team. They won the silver medal. His Weibel Elementary School Chess Team has won at least one California state title every year since 1990 and in 2000 they became the Chess Education Association's national champions in both the Primary and Elementary School Divisions. In 2000, as well, the Chess Education Association named Dr. Kirshner their coach of the year. One of Professor Kirshner's passions is organizing large tournaments. In the 1980's, he directed numerous local, state and national drug tested powerlifting competitions. In the early 1990's, he was the Fremont Soccer's Tournament Director. Since the mid-90's Dr. Kirshner has organized and directed many local and state scholastic chess competitions. In 2006, the CalChess State Scholastics, he ran, drew 1319 young players.

After his youngest sons left for college, Dr. Kirshner created Success Chess School,a non-profit corporation, that provides after school chess instruction in the public and private schools. In 2000, with a little extra time on his hands, Dr. Kirshner accepted the call of numerous parents at other schools. He had volunteered as the chess coach of the Weibel Elementary School after his son Micah won the State Primary School Championship Division in 1989. He continued to do so even after his sons Micah and Tov left Weibel. Dr. Kirshner had honed his chess skills in his youth in the coffee houses of New York City and enjoys sharing his chess knowledge and love of teaching children with the students at Weibel. At 62 years of age he moved on to a new era in his full life by using his previous experience training teachers at the University of West Florida to prepare chess instructors to carry his vision into Bay Area schools. By August 2005,when Dr. Kirshner decided to leave Success Chess Schools to spend more time on his college teaching, SCS had over 70 programs and more then 2500 students.

A compulsive volunteer, Professor Kirshner has been on the Board of Directors of many organizations:The Tri-City Democrats, homeowner's associations, various PTA's, public school Site Councils, Fremont City Youth Soccer, The Maccabi Area Youth Games, American Drug Free Powerlifting Association, The U.S. Powerlifting Federation, California Chess. Dr. Kirshner also served on the Chess Advisory Board of the University of Texas, Dallas. In March 1997, the U.S. Chess Federation declared Dr. Kirshner their Volunteer of the Month.

Dr. Kirshner has posted his October 22, 2003 Self-Evaluation (required as part of the Ohlone faculty evaluation process) for anyone a bit masocistic who cares to learn more about his background, activities and philosophy. You can also read what Ohlone College's Vice President of Instruction, Jim Wright had to say about Dr. Kirshner: Dr. Wright's commentary from December 8, 2003. Over the last few years a fair number of people asked him when he intended to retire from Ohlone. After returning from two weeks in the hospital at the end of 2007 recovering from an emergency operation, he began to believe it might be time. However, when he went up to Ohlone in early January 2008 to pick up his mail he found a card in his box that made him once again aware why he still was not ready to leave teaching. In following the Italian Renaissance tradition of braggadacio, he decided to share the student's card.

Questions, Comments, and/or Suggestions: AKirshner@ohlone.edu