WICHITA, KS — Friends University will celebrate National Constitution Day with a lecture presented by noted civil rights historian and Friends University Professor Emerita Gretchen Cassel Eick, Ph.D.
Dr. Eick worked as a foreign policy and peace lobbyist prior to joining Friends University as a professor of history in 1993. In 2000, she became the first Friends faculty member to earn a Fulbright Fellowship and ultimately earned two of the prestigious awards. In 2009, she was awarded the Friends University Excellence in Teaching Award.
Her scholarly focus has been on the civil rights movement from the 1950s through the 1970s. Her first book, “Dissent in Wichita: The Civil Rights Movement in the Midwest, 1954-72,” published in 2001, won three book awards and prompted a television documentary, museum exhibits and multiple civil rights-related events, as well as speaking and consulting engagements.
The Constitution Day program, “Civil Rights Fights in the Constitution: A History that Kansas Helped Shape.” will take place Wednesday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. in Alumni Auditorium, Davis Administration Building, on the Friends University campus.
The annual Constitution Day event takes place each September to commemorate the Sept. 17, 1787 signing of the United States Constitution. This year’s program coincides with the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States.
Sponsored by the Friends University Garvey Institute of Law and made possible by a grant from the Kansas Humanities Council, the event is free and open to the public. A reception will be held immediately after the presentation in the Davis Administration Building atrium.
For more information email madden@friends.edu. To learn more about Kansas Humanities Council programs, visit www.kansashumanities.org.
Friends University, a Christian University of Quaker heritage, equips students to honor God and serve others by integrating their intellectual, spiritual and professional lives.