photo by: University of Kansas

The University of Kansas Campanile, at left, houses a carillon.

The University of Kansas will host a series of seminars on topics related to democracy and academic freedom over the next two years, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

KU shared details about the seminars in a news release on Friday. The series will be called “Navigating Academic Freedom and Democracy on a Public University Campus in America’s Heartland,” and it will “explore how democracy and academic freedom are understood, taught and tested at KU” and other universities.

Giselle Anatol, director of KU’s Hall Center for the Humanities, is leading the lecture series project, which will bring together multiple KU departments and centers. These include the Hall Center, the Institute for Policy & Social Research, the Center for Democratic Governance and more. Anatol said in the release that the project is not just valuable because of its subject matter, but because it could serve as a model for “robust cross-disciplinary dialogue and productive conversations.”

“We hope it shows how all of these interactions can strengthen scholarship and spark new ideas across KU campuses,” Anatol said.

The series will run from February 2026 to October 2027, and each seminar will be free and open to the public. Meetings during the 2026 spring semester will be held from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on the first Wednesday of each month, starting Feb. 4, at the Hall Center, 900 Sunnyside Ave. Here are the topics that will be discussed this semester:

• Feb. 4: “Setting the Stage: What is Democracy? What is Academic Freedom?”

• March 4: “The Relevance of the Kalven Report”

• April 1: “KU’s Governance Structures and Academic Freedom Policies”

• May 6: “The Relationship Between KU, the Board of Regents and Local Economies”

A full list of future topics can be found on KU’s website.

KU was chosen for the grant in October 2025 by a panel of scholars from across the U.S., the release said. The seminars at KU will be part of a broader Mellon Foundation arts and humanities program called the John E. Sawyer Seminars; other participating universities include Duke University, Brandeis University, the City University of New York (CUNY), Penn State, Rice University, Tulane University, the University of California-Davis and Washington University in St. Louis.