2007 -- Benjamin Spears ('08) and Susan Beaudoin ('08) are named Schaefer Interns.

2007 -- The Center's second visiting scholar, Larry J. Sabato, the University of Virginia's Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Political Science visits St. Mary's in March. As founder and director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, Dr. Sabato spoke about the 2008 presidential election and lectured in an American Politics course on the history of television campaign advertisements. 

2006 -- The Center hosts Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich (R) and Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley (D), along with candidates for Attorney General, Comptroller, State Senate, House of Delegates and Sheriff of St. Mary's County in public forums and student-led debates.

2006 -- The Center publishes its second occasional paper, Spiro Agnew and the Golden Age of Corruption in Maryland Politics: An Interview with Ben Bradlee and Richard Cohen of The Washington Post, edited by Charles J. Holden and Zach Messitte.

2006 -- Kerry Crawford ('07) and Robin Ricks ('07) are named a Schaefer Interns.

2006 -- Harry J. Weitzel becomes the second chair of the Advisory Board of the Center.

2005 --  The Center hosts K-12 educators from 25 states at the NEH Landmarks of American History program, Life, Liberty, and Opportunity: The Struggle for Freedom in Tidewater Maryland, 1634-1865.

2005 --  Elizabeth Luginbill ('06) and Erin Del Collo ('06) are named Schaefer Interns.

2005 --  The Center publishes its first occasional paper, From Necessity, Not Choice, by Jane Calvert and Tony Lake.

2004 -- The Center and Historic St. Mary's City are awarded $148,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Landmarks in American History program. Funding will allow ninety K-12 teachers to come to St. Mary's for two weeks during the summer 2005 to study "Life, Liberty, and Opportunity: The Struggle for Freedom in Tidewater Maryland: 1634-1865."

2004 -- The Center's first visiting scholar, Dr. James McPherson, Professor of History at Princeton University and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Battle Cry of Freedom, is in residence during November. He delivers a  public presentation on The Global Impact of the Civil War.

2004 -- The Center's voter registration drive, St. Mary's Votes, culminates by registering almost 400 St. Mary's College of Maryland students from every county in the state in time to vote in the 2004 Maryland general elections.

2004 -- The Center is awarded a $500,000 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) We the People challenge grant. The Center has until April 2008 to raise $1.5 million to meet the grant. 

2004 -- St. Mary's College and the Center are asked to join Project Pericles, a not-for-profit organization that works with selected colleges and universities to integrate education for socially responsible citizenship into institutional cultures. 

2004 -- Geoff Sanzenbacher ('05) from Westminster, MD is named the second Schaefer Intern.

2003 -- Center receives a three-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to conduct international student exchanges between St. Mary's College of Maryland and the developing democratic countries of Senegal, The Gambia, Brazil, and Thailand.

2003 - St. Mary's Votes! a student-led voter registration campaign is launched.

(Photo at right: St. Mary's College Republicans with John Kane, the Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party at a Center event)

2003 - Richard Romer ('04) from Silver Spring, MD is named the Center's first William Donald Schaefer Intern.

2003 - Web site launched.

2002 – Zach P. Messitte is named director of the Center for the Study of Democracy in September.                                                                                                                                     2002 - The Center wins grants from the Library of Congress and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to promote international education.