On Tuesday, September 17th, over 450 students, staff, and faculty attended Discourse in Democracy’s annual “Constitution Day Lecture”. This year’s speaker, Dr. Benjamin Kleinerman, R.W. Morrison Professor of Political Science at Baylor University, presented a lecture on “The Crisis Presidency.” The lecture explored the duty of the executive to respond to crises, using former President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 response and former President George W. Bush’s response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks as examples.
A prominent scholar of the presidency, Dr. Kleinerman’s books include The Discretionary President: The Promise and Peril of Executive Power (University Press of Kansas) and Extra-Legal Power and Legitimacy: Perspectives on Prerogative (University of Kansas Press). His articles have appeared in a wide variety of journals including Perspectives on Politics, The American Political Science Review, and Texas Law Review.
The next day, Dr. Kleinerman hosted a seminar for 30 students and faculty members that expanded on his lecture. The seminar was moderated by Dr. Michael Faber, a member of the department’s faculty. Abby Myers, one of the students who attended the event, spoke of the “benefits” that accrue to students from being able to have “conversations with someone who is a published author in their field. Such conversations set “a strong foundation, which raises the expectations and standards for student discussion.” Likewise, Madelyn Byers, a political science major who attended the event, said that Dr. Kleinerman’s talk had “the ability to impact the lives of students and to make them care about aspects of political science that will benefit them down the line.”
The department’s Constitution Day activities were made possible by a generous grant from the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History. Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is an American federal observance commemorating the signing of the United States Constitution in 1787 and recognizing those who have become United States citizens by coming of age or through naturalization.
