Programs
School of Conservative Studies
While there are many bright spots on America’s educational landscape, there is no center dedicated to the academic study of conservative thought. To reclaim the American conservative mind and constitutional soul, we have an opportunity to launch a focused educational program of studies that explores the fullness of conservative thought with students, researchers, journalists, and teachers at every level. This is the Russell Kirk Center’s new School of Conservative Studies.
McLellan Prizes
The Richard D. McLellan Prizes is a unique educational program administered by the Russell Kirk Center. Its aim is to help reshape the national conversation on issues surrounding the durability and prospects for the American tradition of free speech and expression as guaranteed in the U. S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The McLellan Prizes draw attention to the central importance of the free speech tradition, particularly recognizing those doing the most important and exciting work in that area. These Prizes seek to support talented thinkers, creators, and communicators capable of rearticulating the perennial importance of the First Amendment, and transmitting a better understanding of the freedoms it secures for all.
Piety Hill Seminars
For more than forty years, students and distinguished lecturers have participated in seminars at Piety Hill, the ancestral home of Russell Kirk. These gatherings have addressed a wide variety of topics, including: “Can Virtue be Taught?,” “The Founders and the Constitution,” and “A Humane Economy.”
Wilbur Fellows Program
The Center’s unique residential research and study fellowship is its flagship program. Undergraduate, graduate students, and professors from across the country and around the world are awarded Wilbur Fellowships to live, research, and write at Piety Hill, the Kirk family’s ancestral homestead and a lively literary community.
Society for Law and Culture
The Society for Law and Culture is an organization for lawyers, judges, professionals, and academics whose goal is to strengthen the ties between law and culture and promote a renewed sense of the law as a vocation and humane profession.
Edmund Burke Society
The Edmund Burke Society is dedicated to the study, interpretation, and application of the life and thought of Edmund Burke. Through events and publications, the Society seeks to present the perennial insight and wisdom of Edmund Burke to a new generation as a salutary guide for action, reform, and renewal.