Constitution Day
The Reubin O'D. Askew Department of Government hosts a Constitution Day event each year.
Constitution Day 2023
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
6:00 - 7:30 PM (CT) Building 82
Center for Fine and Performing Arts Music Hall
The 2023 Constitution Day event will feature lecturer, Dr. Keith E. Whittington, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. Join us as Dr. Whittington presents, “Is the Electoral College a Constitutional Crisis Waiting to Happen?”
All UWF faculty, staff, students and alumni are invited. This lecture is also open to the public.
Dr. Whittington specializes on topics such as American constitutional history, the intersection of politics and law, and American political thought. He has authored Repugnant Laws: Judicial Review of Acts of Congress from the Founding to the Present and Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech, among other works. Dr. Whittington is the founding chair of Academic Freedom Alliance and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, and the University of Texas School of Law, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also served on the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Constitution Day 2022
Dr. Postell was the featured speaker of the 2022 Constitution Day event. View the lecture, here.
Sept. 12th, The Reubin D. Askew Department of Government welcomed Dr. Joseph Postell, associate professor of politics at Hillsdale College, as he presented "Is Administrative Law Constitutional?" Postell's lecture was the featured event for UWF's 2022 Constitution Day. The lecture was the third in a series of three supported by the Jack Miller Center, which dedicated funding to support statesmenship, constitutionalism and culture.
Dr. Postell's teaches political theory. His research interests focus on understanding the political institutions that determine how politics works in America and the modern administrative state, Congress, and political parties.
Why We Celebrate Constitution Day
As the fundamental law of the land, The Constitution is our most important guide to the obligations and the limitations of government in America. Constitution Day, September 17, is both an opportunity for celebrating our country's unique achievement in crafting a written body of fundamental laws for the people's government and it is also an important reminder of the knowledge necessary for good citizenship. As we know from the Declaration of Independence, the just powers of government are entirely derived from our consent. Constitution Day reminds us of those laws to which we give our consent as members of the body politic. We, here at the University of West Florida, are honored to contribute to the furtherance of a healthy civic life by providing resources to our students for their continuing education in the study of the Constitution.
The Constitution of the United States of America
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
For more information on the US Constitution go to: United States Constitution
Past Constitution Day Speakers
- 2022: "Is Administrative Law Constitutional" with Dr. Joseph Postell, Hillsdale College
- 2021: Dr. Richard J. Dougherty, University of Dallas.
- 2020: No campus gathering due to COVID-19
- 2019: CASSH Presentation of "An Evening with Carl Hiaasen" as part of the Seligman First Amendment Lecture Series
- 2018: A Panel Discussion on "The Constiution and American Higher Education Today" with Faculty Members: Dr. Adam Cayton, Dr. Hal White, Dr. Randy Reid, Dr. Richard Hough, and Dr. Jacob Shively
- 2017: "Impressment, Mutiny and the Seafaring Origins of the Federal Courts" presented by:
Dr. Matthew Brogdon, Assistant Professor at the University of Texas San Antonio - 2016: "Liberty as a Lodestar: The Constitution's Commitment to Freedom" presented by:
Dr. Adam Carrington, Assistant Professor at Hillsdale College - 2015: A Panel Discussion of the Constitution with UWF Faculty Members:
Dr. Alfred Cuzán, Dr. James Miklovich, Dr. David Ramsey,
Dr. Jacob Shively, and Dr. Michelle Williams - 2014: A Lecture on the United State's Constitution presented by:
The Honorable Terry D. Terrell, Circuit Judge, First Judicial Circuit State of Florida - 2013: "Gideon v. Wainwright at 50: Fulfilling Gideon's Promise" presented by:
Dr. Teri Fine, Professor at the University of Central Florida - 2012: "Does Thomas Jefferson Still Survive After Reappointment?" presented by:
Dr. Keith Gaddie, Professor at the University of Oklahoma - 2011: "American Exceptionalism: Past, Present, and Past Again" presented by:
Dr. Michael Bailey, Associate Professor at Berry College - 2010: "Tradition and Modernity: The Original Constitution" presented by:
Dr. James R. Stoner, Jr., Professor at Louisiana State University - 2009: "The Founders and the Furnishing of Mind" presented by
Dr. Hadley Arkes, Professor at Amherst College - 2008: "The President and the Constitution in the Age of Terror" presented by:
Dr. Marc Landy, Co-author of Presidential Greatness - 2007: Lecture by Dr. Gordon Lloyd
- 2006: The Original Understanding of the Bill of Rights" presented by:
Dr. Hadley Arkes, Professor at Amherst College