KU awarded grant for Sawyer Seminars on academic freedom and democracy

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has received support from the Mellon Foundation to fund a two-year seminar series on concepts of democracy and academic freedom.

Titled “Navigating Academic Freedom and Democracy on a Public University Campus in America’s Heartland,” the project was selected by a panel of distinguished scholars from across the nation and named one of the John E. Sawyer Seminars series in October 2025. Other Sawyer Seminars series were named at institutions including Duke University, Brandeis University, the City University of New York (CUNY), Penn State, Rice University, Tulane University, the University of California-Davis and Washington University in St. Louis. 

KU sessions will run from February 2026 through October 2027 and will explore how democracy and academic freedom are understood, taught and tested at KU and at other heartland public universities.

The series is a collaboration among the Hall Center for the Humanities, the Center for Democratic Governance, the Kansas Data Consortium within the Institute for Policy & Social Research and the Provost’s Office of Community Impact. The project is led by Hall Center Director Giselle Anatol with co-principal investigators Nicole Hodges Persley, Christopher Koliba, Randall Fuller and William Duncan.

“This project isn’t only valuable for its subject matter,” Anatol said. “It also has the potential to serve as a model for successful partnerships between research centers, robust cross-disciplinary dialogue and productive conversations between participants who approach complex issues from distinct perspectives. We hope it shows how all of these interactions can strengthen scholarship and spark new ideas across KU campuses.”

The Sawyer Seminars will bring together researchers at all levels and members of the public to examine the relationship between higher education and democracy, address contemporary challenges to academic freedom and consider how universities might adapt different pedagogical strategies for generations to come.

"KU has a strong history of cultivating a campus community that encourages sharing and grappling with diverse perspectives,” said Shelley Hooks, the university’s vice chancellor for research. “We are excited to celebrate and build on that tradition by creating space for a broad range of voices to explore topics of fundamental importance to academic freedom and democracy, particularly in an era of increasing polarization.”

All sessions will be free and open to the public. Spring 2026 meetings will take place from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on the first Wednesday of each month during the academic year, beginning Feb. 4 at the Hall Center, 900 Sunnyside Ave. The group will also meet for a summary session in October 2026 and a half-day capstone in October 2027.

Seminar themes

Planned discussions this spring include:

• Feb. 4: Setting the Stage: What is Democracy? What is Academic Freedom?
• March 4: The Relevance of the Kalven Report
• April 1: KU’s Governance Structures and Academic Freedom Policies
• May 6: The Relationship Between KU, the Board of Regents and Local Economies.

Additional topics will be explored this fall and through 2027, including:

• Individual Rights and Academic Freedom: Lessons taken from the Separation of Church & State in Kansas and Campus Dynamics
• Contemplating Sovereignty and Freedom on Campus, given the Complexities of Past Injustices
• Faculty Control over Course Content: Addressing Pressure from Policymakers and University-wide Curriculum Decisions
• Wrestling with Book-Banning and Censorship
• Teaching Democratic Values at KU – Disappearing Civics Education
• The Dismantling of Programs with “Low Numbers”
• Handling Fear of Conflict in College Classrooms in the Heartland
• Employing Sites of Informal Learning to Address Conflict in the Heartland
• Concerns about Academic Freedom in Research
• Recent Protests on Campus.

Get the latest Sawyer Seminar updates at the Sawyer Seminar webpage.

To learn more about the Sawyer Seminars from 1994 to present, go to Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar webpage.