Jack Miller Center Supporting Constitution Day Programs on College Campuses Across the Nation

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 11, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Jack Miller Center (JMC), a Philadelphia-based non-profit, is supporting Constitution Day programs on college campuses across the United States on a wide-range of topics in observance of the federally mandated Constitution Day on September 17. JMC-supported academic programs will be held on campuses across the country, including Brown, Claremont, Columbia, DePaul, Duke, Emory, Harvard, Kenyon, Middlebury, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Pomona, Rhodes, Villanova, Weber State, Wisconsin and Yale.

Participants in this year's programs:

Supreme Court Justice Scalia will lecture and participate in a seminar on Constitutional Interpretation at Rhodes College;
Chief Judge Wood will discuss the Magna Carta and the Idea of the Rule of Law at Roosevelt University;
Prize-winning author Andrew O'Shaughnessy will discuss his book: The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire at the University of Oklahoma;
Kirsten Powers will lecture at Weber State University on the subject of her new book: The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.

Other Topics for 2015 include:

• The Founders' View of Religious Liberty
• Race and the Constitution
• Does the Constitution Shape the Nation's Character?
• The Supreme Court's Role and Its Limits
• Lincoln and the Constitution
• The Battle Against Cyber-terrorism and the Rule of Law
• New Title IX Controversies

With a lead gift from the Andrea Waitt Carlton Family Foundation and support from other donors, JMC launched its Constitution Day initiative (CDI) in 2011 to increase awareness of the Constitution Day mandate and assist colleges in developing substantive educational programs through its network of some 800 professors on more than 300 campuses, many of whom specialize in the study and teaching of the American constitutional tradition. Daniel Cullen, political science professor at Rhodes College and JMC senior fellow in constitutional studies, directs the Constitution Day Initiative.

Today, JMC offers the only national initiative to help higher education meet the federal mandate by mounting lectures and debates on constitutional topics of current interest or enduring importance. JMC 's website provides valuable information to assist universities in preparing high quality education programs to celebrate Constitution Day (www.jackmillercenter.org). In addition, JMC distributes to some 600 colleges and universities information packages that offer recommendations to enhance their Constitution Day programming and include support materials such as pocket-sized copies of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.  

In the past five years, JMC has provided matching funds to outstanding programs on college campuses across the country exploring the central role of the Constitution to understanding the American experience, past and present. In addition to an impressive roster of professors from some of the nation's most prestigious universities, past programs have included leading public intellectuals, members of Congress and Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens, Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia.

"The Constitution Day Initiative (CDI) has touched campuses all across the country," said Wilfred M. McClay, Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty, University of Oklahoma. "The observance of Constitution Day on many of those campuses used to be minimal to nonexistent. The CDI is helping schools to mount rich and sophisticated programming, with great speakers and exciting subjects."

CDI director Daniel Cullen emphasizes that "Constitutional controversies continue to drive American politics, and so the questions that occupy scholars also matter to ordinary citizens. Debating what the Constitution means is also a way of discussing the principles and institutional practices that constitute us as a people."

2015 Constitution Day Programs
Leading historians, political scientists, and legal scholars will examine the meaning of the Constitution in lectures, debates and panels reaching thousands of students across the nation. All events are free and open to the public.

"JMC is proud that its support of Constitution Day programs around the country has resulted in substantive discussions on Constitutional issues – and 2015 is no exception," said Dr. Michael Andrews, executive officer and vice president for academic programs at the Jack Miller Center. "The richness of the discourse on the Constitution demonstrates its continuing relevance to a free society. Strong faculty interest and student participation reinforces the importance of our mission of bringing back the critical study of American constitutionalism to the curriculum."

About the Jack Miller Center
The Jack Miller Center (JMC) is a nonpartisan 501 (C) (3) charity dedicated to reinvigorating education in America's founding principles and history. JMC partners with faculty, administrators and donors to transform student access to education in American political thought and history, an education necessary for informed and engaged citizenship. To accomplish this mission, JMC builds a community of professors committed to providing this education, develops a network of partner programs that will sustain this teaching on individual campuses, and conducts national programs, like the Constitution Day Initiative, that no professor or campus would be able to do independently.

JMC was founded by Jack Miller, a prominent Chicago philanthropist, and is led by its president, Mike Ratliff (Rear Admiral, USN ret.). Miller and Ratliff began their efforts in higher education in 2004 and incorporated JMC as an independent foundation in 2007 with headquarters in Philadelphia. Today, JMC staff includes several former college professors who work closely with faculty partners on campuses nationwide helping them launch and grow new initiatives that give thousands of students new opportunities to learn about America's constitutional tradition. JMC staff also includes nonprofit professionals with expertise in communications and donor services. For more information, visit www.jackmillercenter.org.

About Constitution Day
In 2004, Congress passed legislation requiring every institution of higher education receiving federal funds to hold educational programming on September 17, the day the remaining delegates to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention met to sign the Constitution. While campus administrators are generally aware of the federal mandate to hold Constitution Day programs, they often lack the resources to mount substantive events.

SOURCE Jack Miller Center

Related Links

http://www.jackmillercenter.org