Dear John,

It's been a banner month for the Russell Kirk Center as we held our first ever event in Washington, D.C., and announced major new programs at the Center.

The celebration of the 70th anniversary of The Conservative Mind was attended by more than 300 guests, including a surprise visit from former Vice President Mike Pence. We continue to be deeply encouraged by the thoughtful insights of our emerging conservative panelists and by the many students and young professionals that joined us. In a great article titled Russell Kirk and Kids These Days, Zach Kessel gives a sense of their engagement in National Review:

“‘Young people today increasingly see liberalism as hollow; they find themselves yearning for permanent things and worthy objects of devotion,’ Baylor University political-science Ph.D. student Shane Leary, who delivered Tuesday night’s invocation, told National Review. ‘While post-liberal fanfare may offer some immediate reactionary satisfaction, Kirk offers far richer threads from the Western tradition which run through the American founding.’” 

The video recording of the panel as well as more photos from the event are now up on our website.

At the gathering, I also announced the Kirk Center’s major new initiative: The School of Conservative Studies. Over the next eighteen months, I will be building on the historic program here at the Kirk Center to develop our School of Conservative Studies—an idea Russell Kirk himself broadly considered years ago. We are now in a position to realize Dr. Kirk’s dream and will develop a series of integrated courses and seminars that can provide a comprehensive education in conservatism, both its key ideas and imaginative dimensions.

If you would like to help support our capacity building fundraising effort in 2024-25, please consider including the Kirk Center in your year-end giving. Help us show students, teachers, and young professionals how the American conservative tradition can address today’s practical and urgent dilemmas.

In a new essay for the European Conservative, Dr. Daniel Pitt, a teaching associate at the University of Sheffield and a former student of Sir Roger Scruton, writes:

“If conservatives wish to live lives that have meaning and purpose, bound to family life and a local community, and situated within a religious and ethical apprehension of the world, to whom should they turn? Where can one turn for a humane conservatism? To these questions, it seems obvious to me that Russell Kirk and Sir Roger Scruton are two giants from whom we can seek answers.”

We look to the filtered wisdom of the past for guidance as we move forward in the knowledge that each of us has a part to play in defending and enlivening the permanent things.

Our family and the entire Kirk Center team send along every good wish for a joyous Christmastide and fruitful new year.

With gratitude,