VoteUP and DB Faculty Fellow for Constructive Dialogue Anne Santiago invite you to a series of events to prepare you for the election season.
- Sept 11, 2024 @ 7 p.m. – Pilot House: Harris v. Trump Debate Watch Party
- Sept 24, 2024 @ 6:30 p.m. – DB Aud Film & Discussion: Century of the Self, Part 1 Happiness Machines
- Lunchtime Insights in DB Lounge
- Wednesdays @12:30 p.m. and Thursdays @11:30 a.m.
- Bring a lunch and your thoughts, concerns, and questions to digest what’s happening with guidance by UP faculty and staff
We hope you join us for one or all events and encourage you to become actively involved in supporting democratic engagement!
Questions? Contact Anne Santiago (santiago@up.edu) and Elizabeth Parkman (parkmane@up.edu).
On September 17, 1776, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created, the US Constitution. In 2004, the US Congress mandated that any educational institution that receives Federal funding is required to hold educational programming about the US Constitution.
The annual Mazzocco Lecture on Distributive Justice will take place on Thursday, February 6, at 5 p.m., in the Brian Doyle Lecture Hall (DB 004). This year’s lecture, “American Hate: Survivors Speak Out,” will be delivered by Arjun Sethi, a human rights lawyer, author, and law professor based in Washington, DC. He works closely with Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and Sikh communities and advocates for racial justice, equity, and social change at the local and national levels. He holds faculty appointments at Georgetown University Law Center and Vanderbilt University Law School, and presently co-chairs the American Bar Association’s National Committee on Homeland Security, Terrorism, and Treatment of Enemy Combatants.
The political science department will present its annual Constitution Day Lecture on Tuesday, September 17, 5 to 6:30 p.m., in Dundon-Berchtold room 004. Professor Nick Buccola of the Linfield College political science department will give a talk about Frederick Douglass’s constitutional theory. Frederick Douglass, of course, is the 19th century American statesman and political thinker who escaped slavery to become a key abolitionist and proponent of racial justice. Buccola is the author of The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass and of a new book, The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate Over Race in America. He is also the director of the Frederick Douglass Forum on Law, Rights, and Justice at Linfield.
William Chafe, emeritus professor of history at Duke University, presents this year’s Mazzocco Lecture on Distributive Justice on Monday, February 4, at 7:15 p.m., in Franz Hall room 120. In his talk, “The Black Struggle for Freedom: What Black Protest Has Achieved, Yet How Much Remains to Be Done,” Chafe will shine a light on how racism remains a powerful force in American society today, even though a great many Americans refuse to admit it.
Zachary Price of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, will present “Constitutional Law in a Polarized Era” on Wednesday, October 3, at 5 p.m., in Franz Hall room 120. His lecture is free and open to all.
Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi, political science, will join a group of more than 40 United Nations Global Fellows from 33 countries who are being featured at a Global Summit at the UN and recognized for their work in their communities on Saturday, September 22. Golesorkhi will be attending the event at the UN that day, but her colleague Anne Santiago, political science, will oversee a livestream for students, faculty, and staff to watch that day from 9 t0 11 a.m. in Franz Hall room 120. All are welcome to attend and learn more about Golesorkhi’s work helping Muslim women refugees in Europe.
The 2018 Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice will take place on Thursday, March 8, at 5 p.m., in Franz Hall room 120. This year’s speaker will be Robert S. Chang, professor of law & executive director of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at Seattle University School of Law. His lecture is titled “Law’s Distributive Force.”
The 2017 Constitution Day presentation will take place on Tuesday, September 19, at 7:30 p.m., in Franz Hall room 120. Bill Curtis, political science, will be speaking about significant constitutional cases that are up for consideration by the Supreme Court. The title will be “Travel Bans, Cell Phone Searches, and Wedding Cakes: The Supreme Court’s Upcoming Cases.” All are welcome and light refreshments will be served. For more information contact political science at x7274 or 
Philosopher David Schmidtz will deliver “Markets in Education,” as the 2017 Mazzocco Lecture in Distributive Justice, on Thursday, February 23, at 5 p.m., in Shiley Hall 301. Schmidtz is Kendrick Professor of Philosophy and Eller Chair of Service-Dominant Logic at the University of Arizona, ranked as the top graduate program in the world in political philosophy. He is editor of Social Philosophy & Policy and is the Freedom Center’s founding director. He is the author of dozens of articles and several books, including: Rational Choice and Moral Agency, The Elements of Justice, and Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, and What Really Works (with Elizabeth Willott).