William McKenzie is the Senior Editorial Advisor at the George W. Bush Institute, where he is working on editorial projects on democracy and freedom. He previously served as founding editor of The Catalyst: A Journal of Ideas from the Bush Institute.
As an adjunct journalism lecturer at SMU, he teaches courses on media and politics and opinion writing. He also has led a course on education policy and journalism.
Before joining the Bush Institute, the Fort Worth native served 22 years as an editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News, where he remains a contributing columnist. The University of Texas graduate’s columns have appeared nationwide, and he has won a Pulitzer Prize and commentary awards from the Education Writers Association, the American Academy of Religion, and the Texas Headliners Foundation, among other organizations.
Before joining the News in 1991, he earned a master’s degree in political science from the University of Texas at Arlington and spent a dozen years in Washington, D.C. During that time, he edited the Ripon Forum.
McKenzie has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror, as a volunteer with and board member of homeless organizations in Dallas and Washington, and on governing committees of a Dallas public school. He is a member of the Fort Worth Independent School District’s Hall of Fame and an elder of the First Presbyterian Church in Dallas. He and his wife live in Dallas and are parents of twin children.
