1.The AHI announced publicly a partnership with Encounter Books, a leading publisher of non-fiction books devoted “to strengthening the marketplace of ideas and engaging in educational activities to help preserve democratic culture.” The AHI will soon open an Encounter Book bookstore within its headquarters, and Encounter Books and the AHI will co-sponsor book-signings and lectures from Encounter’s leading authors. Roger Kimball, editor and publisher of The New Criterion, the leading journal of arts and culture in the English-speaking world, is the publisher of Encounter Books. Best-selling authors include Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson, and John Fund. The partnership is being funded by a grant from VERITAS, a fund for educational reform created by the Manhattan Institute.

The AHI/Encounter bookstore will be housed in a room named after the Robert S. Ludwig Family. Mr. Ludwig, Hamilton College class of 1972, has supported the AHI from its inception, and his unrestricted gift in 2008 permitted major renovations to our headquarters.

Trending
Publius Society Gathering 28 September

2. In April, the Armstrong Foundation awarded a $5000 grant to the AHI. The Armstrong Foundation supports organizations that seriously explore in their educational programming “the free enterprise system, the benefits of limited government, and the basic principles of American ideals espoused by the founding fathers.” The $5000 award, which will support programming, was the maximum allowable for a first-time applicant to the foundation.

3. On 1 April, Dr. Walter Brumm received the AHI’s inaugural E. M. (Peter) Bakwin Fellowship, a competitive award that provides a stipend of $1600 for advanced research in regional archives and libraries on subjects that comport with the central concerns of the AHI as defined in its charter. Recipients of the award reside, free of charge, for one summer month (June or July) in the AHI’s headquarters.

4. On July 6-7, the AHI, in partnership with Baylor University and Notre Dame University, will hold a conference that will compare the politics of Shakespeare and of Machiavelli. Mary and David Nichols, AHI Senior Fellows and professors in the Department of Political Science at Baylor are organizing the conference, which will be open to the public. The conference will feature the participation of graduate students from several major universities and observers will include Hamilton College undergraduates. Summer seminars and conferences of this type will be a regular feature of AHI programming.

5. On 17 September 2009, the AHI will be celebrating its second anniversary. Professor Paul Finkelman, President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at Albany Law School, will deliver at the Hamilton College chapel the second annual David Aldrich Nelson Lecture in Constitutional Jurisprudence. The lecture is named for David Aldrich Nelson, valedictorian of his Hamilton class, 1954, who served as a distinguished federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals on the Sixth Circuit. Professor Finkelman is widely regarded as perhaps this country’s foremost authority on the legal history of slavery in the United States. His lecture on the principles of the founding will be open to the public.

6. In April 2010, the AHI will be holding at the Turning Stone Resort the third annual Carl B. Menges Colloquium. The colloquium, named after the Hamilton alumnus who became a driving force in the AHI’s creation, will center in 2010 on the relationship between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

7. The AHI honors the “Rochester Group,” headed by Harlan Calkins, Hamilton Class of 1954 and CEO of Rochester Midland Corporation, for their generous support to the AHI. Members include Mary Lou and Jerry Huff, the James Ryan family, Jan Mahood, Kraig Kayser, Drew Costanza, Fritz and Maura Minges, and Sam Reeder.