Help us welcome the Kirk Center's new CEO.

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Dear
John,
As we begin to settle into 2022, I want to share with you some exciting news about the future of the Russell Kirk Center.

I co-founded the Kirk Center in 1995 with the help of my son-in-law, Jeff Nelson. He had the non-profit educational and publishing experience and was one of Russell’s assistants, and I had the passion to develop this unique educational community into a viable institution. With the generous help of David Kennedy, then president of the Earhart Foundation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, we were able to incorporate and file successfully for an IRS non-profit determination letter and begin to institutionalize the work Russell and I had done together here in Mecosta.

Our life's work has been to teach students about the roots of American conservatism and the larger civilizational tradition from which it emerged. The Kirk Center has continuously welcomed students to Piety Hill to engage in the kind of serious discussions, seminars, and writing that is necessary for a culture to flourish. Just a few weeks ago, in fact, we had a wonderful seminar with almost forty students from the University of Louisville.

It has been a privilege to continue this work and to meet so many remarkable students and professors. I have never lost hope, even amidst our many political and cultural struggles, having known the promise of these rising generations.
Students from The University of Louisville.

This May, I will be eighty-two and, while I still have the same level of commitment to this work, I am ready to assume a new role. Last year, I asked Jeff and his wife, my second daughter, Cecilia, to consider moving to Michigan to take the operational helm of the Kirk Center and ensure that its place is established on the American cultural and intellectual landscape. They agreed and the Center is now poised to make an important generational transition.

Kirk Center Executive Director & CEO, Jeff Nelson

I am happy to announce that Jeff will be the Kirk Center’s Executive Director & CEO effective immediately. I will become President Emerita and will be active advancing what has been called the Mecosta Mission, working alongside students and scholars visiting here for seminars or residing for periods of time to research and write. Jeff will manage the overall operational and educational life of the Center and see to its flourishing moving forward.

This succession plan long has been in the works. Jeff has been an active member of the board and has been involved in all aspects of the Center’s life. I am blessed to have such an able son-in-law who knew and worked closely with Russell—not to mention Cecilia, who is a gifted editor and has managed our publications for the past three years.

Jeff and Cecilia Nelson at the Russell Kirk Centenary celebration in Mecosta, 2019.

Jeff recently left the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, where he served with great distinction in many leadership capacities over the past three decades, to return to his native Michigan. Jeff grew up near the Plymouth, Michigan, train tracks that Russell used to walk on when he was young. They both went to school in the same Plymouth building (although it was a high school for Russell and was converted into a middle school when Jeff attended). After high school at Detroit Catholic Central, he earned a B.A. from the University of Detroit. It was as an undergraduate that Jeff discovered ISI, founded a chapter, brought in conservative speakers, and attended Piety Hill seminars. After graduating, he became one of Russell’s literary assistants for nearly a year.

Jeff has led many seminars at Piety Hill, and has played a key role in inviting scholars and welcoming students to the Center.

Jeff attended Yale University Divinity School where he earned an MAR. He returned to Mecosta for a summer, and later earned his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. His dissertation was on Edmund Burke and America, which I know would have pleased Russell.

Among Jeff’s accomplishments is the founding of ISI Books—a book imprint that has published some of the most consequential conservative titles over the past twenty-five years. He was also editor of The Intercollegiate Review: A Journal of Scholarship and Opinion and he edited the University Bookman for ten years. In addition, he was privileged to work with the distinguished Georgetown University political theorist George W. Carey, as executive editor of The Political Science Reviewer.

Jeff was an early employee at the Acton Institute, a group that has done much good and which is a valuable partner for us. He is treasurer of the Edmund Burke Society of America and a contributing editor for the Society’s journal, Studies in Burke and His Time. He also served as the second president of the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in New Hampshire.

In recent years, Jeff oversaw the national educational program for ISI as its Chief Academic Officer. In that role, he directed ISI’s American Universities and the Principles of Liberty (AUPL) partnership with Liberty Fund, Inc., bringing students and professors together for high quality Socratic-style seminars, and he designed a six-course Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) curriculum that explored dimensions of liberty. He also assembled a talented team of young program officers and together they increased ISI’s undergraduate membership by 83%, organized more than 150 on-campus events, built a network of more than 135 campus groups and 65 alternative student newspapers, and strengthened ISI’s undergraduate Honors program, graduate fellowship program, and impressive network of almost 5000 faculty nationwide.

He is the editor of several books, including two books by Russell, Redeeming the Time and The Political Principles of Robert A. Taft. He co-edited American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, and edited books by mentors of his such as Perfect Sowing: Reflections of a Bookman by Henry Regnery and Remembered Past by John Lukacs.

In Russell’s memoir, The Sword of Imagination, he noted that Jeff was poised to carry on his “literary raids against the enemies of the Permanent Things.” While that is a tall task to live up to, Russell also said Jeff possessed “unusual talents,” an acknowledgement that he combines the intellectual and practical dimensions needed to guide the Center. I am grateful that he has agreed to take the helm of the Kirk Center and build out its programs to ensure students will encounter those Permanent Things in the years to come.

Please join me in welcoming Jeff and in praying for all of us and our mission.

Sincerely,

Annette Kirk, President Emerita
The Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal
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