Lamar University’s Mary and John Gray Library will host the fourth annual Constitution Day program at 7:30 p.m., Sept. 17, 2008 in the Spindletop Room of the University Reception Center, on the eighth floor of the library. The program is free and open to the public.
Theresa Hefner-Babb, assistant professor and documents and reference services librarian, says each speaker will present topics related to the Constitution and invite questions from the audience. A reception is planned immediately after the program.
Speakers will be Paul Hemenway, professor of communication; Dominic Beggan, assistant professor of history; and Major Robert Campbell, U.S. Army Reserve.
Hemenway, a Lamar faculty member since 2006, will present the topic “How well do you know your school-related, constitutionally-guaranteed, First Amendment freedoms?”
Beggan, who joined the faculty in 2005, will speak on “Who Constitutionally has the power to declare war?” Campbell will speak on how the Constitution impacts the military in a talk titled “Necessity.”
In December 2004, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia added an amendment to Public Law 108-447, requiring all educational institutions that receive federal funds provide an educational program on Sept. 17, commemorating the date that the U.S. Constitution was adopted in 1787.
The Mary and John Gray Library is the federal depository library serving the 2nd Texas U.S. Congressional District.
“Depository libraries provide free, unrestricted access to government information for everyone,” Hefner-Babb said.
For more information, contact Hefner-Babb at (409) 880-2135.
