Texas A&M Honors Constitution Week With Dialogues And Activities

Texas A&M University is showcasing a weeklong celebration to mark the 233rd anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution.

The document was signed Sept. 17, 1787 and guarantees the freedoms that allow generations of students to flourish and learn. Texas A&M joins educators and students across the country to honor the founding document that created the framework for America.

2020 Constitution Week Events:

Constitution Week:

Tuesday, Sept. 15

Division of Student Affairs will unveil a new website with information to help understand the First Amendment.

Wednesday, Sept. 16

• 7 p.m. – The MSC Wiley Lecture Series presents Counting the Votes: The Electoral College, a presentation about efficacy of the Electoral College by George Edwards, Texas A&M Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Darrell West, VP and director of Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, moderated by Meg Penrose of Texas A&M School of Law. RSVP for the live zoom event at tamu.edu.

Thursday, Sept. 17 – Constitution Day

• 3 p.m. – Texas A&M University will join institutions across the nation in Bells Across Americaplaying patriotic music on the Albritton Bell Tower Carillon bells.
• The College of Liberal Arts will run a story on Hamilton, featuring connection to historical documents and the world-wide phenomenon and Broadway hit play.

Friday, Sept. 18

• Faculty of the Film Studies Program will host a discussion on the documentary, I Am Not Your Negro (2016) which focuses on James Baldwin and his efforts to combat institutional racism in America and provides perspective on injustice, demographic exclusion and civil rights. The documentary is available to all Texas A&M faculty, staff and students through the Evans Library KANOPY. Contact the Film Studies Program for more information.
• 11 p.m. – KAMU-TV will broadcast Inventing America: Making a Nation, which brings th Founding Fathers back to life in a talk show filmed before a live audience. This program features three delegates to the Second Continental Congress – Thomas Jefferson (Bill Barker), Benjamin Franklin (John Hamant) and John Adams (Sam Goodyear) – discussing the lead-up to the Declaration of Independence. A fourth delegate, John Dickinson (Rodney Teslaa), who refused to sign the document, reveals the conflict behind this historic event.

Sunday, Sept. 20

• 11 p.m. – KAMU-TV will air Inventing America: Making a Government, a talk show filmed before a live audience. This program tells the story behind the Constitutional Convention of 1787 – four momentous months that changed the world. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington discuss the conflicts and compromises that led to creating the world’s most enduring republic.

Tuesday, Sept. 22

• 11 p.m. – KAMU-TV will air Liberty for All which brings our Founding Fathers back to life in a TV talk show before a live audience. In Episode 3, “Liberty for All,” James Madison (John Douglas Hall), Thomas Jefferson (Bill Barker), Alexander Hamilton (Hal Bidlack) and Patrick Henry (Richard Schumann) reveal the conflicts and infighting behind the new U.S. Constitution and how that led to the Bill of Rights. The program features a Q&A with college students in which the Founders apply the Bill of Rights to our own time. It concludes with Henry’s famous “Give me liberty, or give me death” speech that inspired the idea of America in the first place.

Saturday, Sept. 26

• The Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band will showcase patriotic music and excerpts from the Preamble of the Constitution during the halftime show at the Vanderbilt game. (Performance pre-recorded to meet public health guidance).

 About Constitution Day

On May 24, 2005, the Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education announced that, pursuant to legislation passed by Congress, educational institutions receiving federal funding are required to hold an educational program pertaining to the United States Constitution on Sept. 17 of each year.

Public Partnership & Outreach, a unit of the Office of the Provost, works in concert with campus and community groups each year to recognize Constitution Week. In 2007, the College Station campus began a cooperative relationship with the La Villita Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution to recognize Constitution Day.