The Jack Miller Center sponsors 27 new campus programs for America’s 250th

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 30, 2026

PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Jack Miller Center is pleased to announce 27 new partnerships with university and college campuses in a continuing celebration of America’s 250^th birthday. These campus programs will help reintroduce key themes of the Declaration of Independence into public discourse on campuses across the country.  

This initiative will empower scholars and students as they explore key themes in the Declaration, such as individual rights, government’s role, and ethical self-government. The campus partnerships will play a key role in rekindling appreciation for the ideas that shaped the United States, especially among younger generations.   

“It is exciting to see how college students throughout the country are studying and discussing and debating the foundational principles found in the Declaration of Independence,” JMC President Hans Zeiger said. “The 250th anniversary of the Declaration reminded us of these world-changing principles, and the Jack Miller Center is pleased to support scholars who are bringing them to life on America’s college campuses.”   

Led by Jack Miller Center scholars, campus partner programs serve as hubs for undergraduate courses, student and faculty events, student fellowships and activities, K-12 teacher education programs, community outreach efforts, and more. Campus programs will engage students both in and out of the classroom. Each partner program holds unique events tailored to their campus, such as debates, reading groups, mock trials, lectures, conferences, and more.    

“The best way to engage with the American Political Tradition and all the traditions that nourish and challenge it is through reading, reflection, conversation, and debate,” said Tom Cleveland, Executive Director of the American Political Tradition Project at the Jack Miller Center.  

The Jack Miller Center partners with colleges and universities each year to advance the teaching of America’s founding principles and documents on campus. This year’s events include student seminars, lectures, and reading groups featuring a range of perspectives from respected historians, political scientists, and legal scholars.    

Each partner program has developed events and activities designed to meet their campus needs. SUNY Geneseo created an interactive reading group for undergraduate students focused on the Declaration and Frederick Douglass. 

“This program has invigorated interest in civic education on our campus by showing students that serious thought and discourse about morality, politics and our founding principles is a vibrant, exciting, and necessary part of their education as human beings and citizens,” SUNY Geneseo Assistant Professor Carly Herold said. 

Jacksonville State University will host a lecture series with scholars who will not only deliver lectures, but attend post-event receptions in which students can ask questions and personally discuss the Declaration with leading academics in the field. The Ohio State University will hold an undergraduate poster competition on the philosophical and historical meaning of the Declaration’s claim that men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” 

“Launching a new academic center dedicated to revitalizing civics education at The Ohio State University has been an ambitious undertaking,” said Chase Center Executive Director Lee Strang. “The Jack Miller Center’s partnership and support have been instrumental in helping the Center advance that mission. JMC’s generous financial support strengthens our ability to bring leading scholars and important conversations to campus through programs such as our upcoming Constitution Day Lecture featuring Dr. Stephanie Barclay, our September Conference on Civic Thought featuring the American Semiquincentennial Undergraduate Poster Competition on the theme ‘What are rights, and where do they come from?’, and many other public and scholarly events.” 

Jack Miller Fellow Thomas Varacalli said these campus events will stress the primary themes of the Declaration to demonstrate to students why the document still matters today, not just to America, but the world.  

“Our programming will emphasize the Declaration’s rule in upholding the rule of law, limited government, the separation of powers, a limited executive, and natural rights,” said Varacalli, Dean of the Honors College at Belmont Abbey College. “The importance of the Declaration of Independence is twofold. First, it provides a marvelous defense of objective truth, human equality, and natural rights. Second, it argues persuasively that in order for the government to be just, it must be rooted in a proper understanding of human nature.”  

View the full list of this year’s campus programs below:  

America250 Campus Partner Programs

Arizona State University 
Center for American Civics

Belmont Abbey College
The Honors College

Benedictine College 
Center for Constitutional Liberty 

Boston College 
John Marshall Project  

Bowdoin College
“For the Common Good: Bowdoin’s America 250 Declaration Dialogues”

Catholic University of America 
Carroll Forum on Citizenship and Public Life

Claremont McKenna College 
Open Academy 

Eastern Connecticut State University
Center for Connecticut Studies

Indiana Wesleyan University
Division of Social Sciences

Institute of World Politics 
Civic Thought and Statecraft Fellowship 

Jacksonville State University
Center for Leadership and American Principles

Lee University 
Center for Responsible Citizenship

Michigan State University
LeFrak Forum

The Ohio State University
Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society

Purdue University 
Program on American Institutional Renewal (PAIR) and Cornerstone Institute for Civic Thought

San Diego State University
American Revolution and Constitution History Project

Seton Hill University 
Declaration of Independence Fellowship

SUNY Geneseo 
Forum on Constitutionalism and Democracy 

University of Alaska, Anchorage
Union League of Anchorage

University of Georgia
American Founding Group

University of Houston 
Lyceum Initiative in the Honors College

University of Pennsylvania
Penn Initiative for the Study of Markets

University of Pikeville
Allegheny Civic Fellowship

University of South Carolina
Center for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse

University of Toledo
Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership

U.S. Military Academy at West Point 
American Foundations

Xavier University
“American Faiths in 1776”

For media inquiries or further information, please contact:

Marlee Promisel
Director of External Relations, Jack Miller Center
media@gojmc.org

About the Jack Miller Center

The Jack Miller Center is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization advancing the work of scholars who teach and study the ideas, documents, and history we hold in common as Americans. We seek to grow the talent pipeline of university educators who teach the American political tradition, to forge new models for university-based training of K-12 civics and history teachers, and to build a diverse coalition of Americans to ignite a civic education renaissance.