The University of Missouri’s Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy (KICD) was established in October 2015. The Institute promotes excellence in interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship about American constitutional and democratic principles, history and traditions.

One year later, we celebrate what the institute has already accomplished to further this mission. Milestones from 2015-2016 include:

• Welcoming 20 undergraduate fellows; 7 graduate fellows; and 5 postdoctoral and research fellows;
• Inducting 17 students into the Kinder Scholars Program, which brings MU undergraduates to Washington, DC, each summer to study, work and live in the nation’s capital;
• Providing research and travel grants toward the scholarly pursuits of three MU faculty and graduate students;
• Naming acclaimed historian and former Director of Oxford University’s Rothermere American Institute Jay Sexton the first Kinder Institute Chair in Constitutional Democracy;
• Celebrating the launch of the Studies in Constitutional Democracy monograph series with University of Missouri Press as well as the publication of numerous faculty books, including Kinder Institute Director Justin Dyer’s S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law (co-authored with Prof. Micah Watson);
• Hosting the inaugural Missouri Summer Teachers Academy, a three-day residential seminar that provides high school teachers throughout the state with an opportunity to explore a theme from American political history alongside Kinder Institute faculty and other regional scholars (co-developed with the Missouri Humanities Council);
• Seeing several faculty members provide expert analysis to major media outlets during this year’s election cycle;
• Opening the doors to our new central office space atop Jesse Hall in the heart of the MU campus; and
• Participating in two major nationwide grants – the Pulitzer Prizes Centennial Campfires Initiative and the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “Humanities in the Public Square” program – which brought elite scholars of history and political science to MU during Fall 2016 to engage the community in discussions about the history and present state of constitutional democracy in the U.S.

Please watch the video below to learn more about undergraduate programming at the University of Missouri’s Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy and click here to read the Institute’s 2015-2016 annual report.

Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy from Mizzou Video Production on Vimeo.