1 / 2

In this 2022 photo, Utah Valley University's Center for Constitutional Studies holds a conference for civics teachers.

Courtesy Utah Valley University

2 / 2

In this 2022 photo, Utah Valley University's Center for Constitutional Studies holds a conference for civics teachers.

Courtesy Utah Valley University

❮ ❯

In honor of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787, the Utah Valley University’s Center for Constitutional Studies will hold its annual Constitution Day conference on UVU’s Orem campus.

The conference will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday and from 8:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Friday. The theme of the two-day conference is “Framing the Frontier: The Making of Western-State Constitutions.” It centers around the impact of state constitutions in the West and their broader influence on the constitutional tradition in America.

The conference will feature constitutional scholars from the U.S. and the United Kingdom who will present and lead panel discussions on topics such as state constitutions and the courts, formal processes of state constitutional change, political conflict and state constitutional change, and why state constitutions matter.

Among the presenters are John Dinan of Wake Forest University, a leading expert on state constitutions, and Nicholas Cole of Oxford University, who founded The Quill Project, a platform that has digitized the records of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and modeled how the negotiations unfolded.

Keynoting the conference on Friday is Jeffrey Sutton, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

“Recent Supreme Court decisions have remanded a number of constitutional questions back to the states,” said Matthew Brogdon, senior director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at UVU. “And there is a critical need for dialogue about and understanding of the relationship between federal and state constitutions. This conference will be an important forum for advancing that discussion.”

The UVU Center for Constitutional Studies, a nonpartisan academic institute, promotes the instruction, study and research of constitutionalism. The center engages students, scholars, educators, leaders and the public on constitutional issues where political thought, public policy, religion, law, history, education and economics intersect.