Every September, the IACH hosts prominent scholars from around the country to deliver the Rufus Fears Lectures on Roger and Patti Clapp Constitution Day. Federal legislation requires institutions that receive federal funding honor September 17th, the day in 1787 the Framers of the Constitution finished their business in Philadelphia. Thanks to a gift from alumni Roger and Patti Clapp, Constitution Day at OU is named after J. Rufus Fears, a beloved Professor of Classics and Letters.
Location: Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art
Mary Eddy and Fred Jones Auditorium
Featured Speaker: Rogers Smith
Rogers M. Smith, the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Political Science, has taught and written on constitutional issues for more than 40 years. He was a professor of political science at Yale University from 1980 to 2001, and he then taught at Penn until his retirement in 2022, serving as Associate Dean for Social Sciences from 2014 to 2018. Smith received five prizes for undergraduate and graduate teaching and mentoring from Yale and Penn, and he is the author of many articles and nine books. His book Civic Ideals: Conflicting Visions of Citizenship U.S. History received six best book prizes and was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in History. Smith is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the founding director of Penn’s Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy, co-founder of the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia, and he was President of the American Political Science Association in 2018-2019.
OU Parking Services will be offering free parking for Constitution Day guests in designated gated staff lots and will be raising the gates from 12:00pm – 3:00pm for your convenience. Parking lots are circled in yellow on the map and disability parking spots are circled in green. Please allow adequate time to search for an available parking space.
OU Parking Services has confirmed guests will not be ticketed while using one of these parking space options. If you receive a ticket by accident, OU Parking Services will void it. You can call parking services at 405-325-3311, email them at parking@ou.edu, or see in person at 1332 Jenkins Ave. Norman, OK 73019-2451. You may also email IACH at iach@ou.edu and the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage would be more than happy to take care of any parking ticket given by mistake.
