The Baker School hosts lectures, conferences, roundtable discussions, classes, and other events. These programs bring together scholars, lawmakers, community members, and students to discuss how to potentially resolve such pressing problems as education shortfalls, global disease epidemics, and armed conflict. Although its programming is wide in scope, the Baker School is especially focused on four topics: governance studies, energy and environment, and global security. Each of these topics was chosen for its political, social, and cultural importance, and so the center brings experts and members of the UT community together to address them in open and unbiased discussion aimed at the formulation of effective and workable policy responses.
Leadership and Governance Studies Program A former congressional and White House correspondent for
The New York Times observed that throughout Senator Baker's public career, the senator “reflected certain values—bipartisanship, a respect for the Congress as an institution, a sense of civility, and a belief in the value of compromise—values that are far less visible today in Washington than when he was there.” Those values are at the heart of the Baker Studies Program's mission, which is essentially twofold. First, the Baker Studies Program encourages and facilitates the maximum use of the Modern Political Archives housed at the Baker Center. These archives, which include the papers of Senator Baker and many of Tennessee's most accomplished modern political leaders and jurists, are a significant and substantial resource for scholars, journalists, students, and others interested in regional and national history. For instance, the archives’ Oral History Program includes the transcripts of some 300 interviews of Senator Baker and numerous of his associates. Second, the Baker Studies Program provides a unique forum for exploring the values that Senator Baker epitomized in his career in public service. Toward that end, the Baker Studies Program is sponsoring academic conferences on topics ranging from Senator Baker's role in the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation to the service rendered by Senator Baker as Senate minority and majority leader, President Richard Nixon's overtures to Senator Baker as a possible successor to U.S. Supreme Court Justice
John Marshall Harlan II, and Senator Baker's tenure as White House Chief of Staff to President
Ronald Reagan.
Energy and Environment Program The Energy and Environment Program at the Baker Center strives to continue Senator Baker's work in the areas of energy and environmental policy. The program examines how energy and environmental issues affect the quality of life for people around the world. Among the issues addressed by the program are energy consumption and conservation; nuclear energy; renewable energy; air and water pollution; and climate change. The center hopes to study the interaction of energy and the environment to develop economically sound policies that improve the quality of life of the world's citizens. The center's activities in energy and environmental policy programs have been strengthened by the establishment of key partnerships with other energy policy institutes, think tanks, professional societies, universities, national laboratories, and industries.
Global Security Program The center's Global Security Program examines the shifting landscapes of science, technology, and policy, and how these and other factors can affect the political and cultural environment both at home and abroad. Identifying threats to national security—particularly nuclear terrorism—will be important in implementing policies that protect citizens from internal and external attack. The goal of the program is to bring together industry leaders, technology and policy experts, and government officials in order to devise policies on key issues of national security. ==Student programs==