The F. M. Kirby Foundation presents “We the People: Reflections at 250,” a five-part webinar series celebrating America’s 250th anniversary by exploring the enduring principles that shaped our nation’s foundation. Running from April through September 2026, this series brings together distinguished scholars and leaders from some of the Foundation’s nonprofit partners to examine the ideals of 1776 and their relevance today. From free speech and civic virtue to pluralism and volunteerism, these conversations will reflect on 250 years of our nation’s journey toward its founding principles and the ongoing work of building a more perfect union. All webinars are free and begin at 12:30 PM ET. Recordings of these webinars will be made available on the Foundation’s YouTube channel following the conclusion of the event.

Speaker Biographies

James G. Basker

President, Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History

James G. Basker is president and CEO of the Gilder Lehrman Institute and Richard Gilder Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, Columbia University. As president of the Gilder Lehrman Institute since 1997, Basker has overseen the development of major history education initiatives, including a national network of affiliate schools, teacher seminars, traveling exhibitions, digital archives, the Hamilton Education Program, and the National History Teacher of the Year Award.

Basker was educated at Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He taught for seven years at Harvard University before coming to New York. He has been a visiting professor at New York University, Cambridge University, and Rogue Community College in Oregon. Since 1985 he has led academic programs for high school students at Oxford, most recently as academic director for “Oxford Academia,” based at University College.

Professor Jeff Rosen

CEO Emeritus, National Constitution Center and Professor of Law, The George Washington University Law School

Jeffrey Rosen is the CEO emeritus of the National Constitution Center. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. He was previously the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a staff writer for the New Yorker.

Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Yale Law School. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute. In 2024, the French government recognized him as a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Professor Michael Lamb

F. M. Kirby Chair of Leadership & Character, Wake Forest University

Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Senior Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Wake Forest University. He earned a B.A. in political science from Rhodes College, a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University, and a second B.A. in philosophy and theology from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. Michael also holds an honorary degree from Maryville College. A recipient of teaching awards from Princeton, Oxford, and Wake Forest, his teaching and research focus on leadership, character, and the role of virtues in public life.

He is the author of A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought and co-editor of The Arts of Leading: Perspectives from the Humanities and the Liberal Arts, Cultivating Virtue in the University, and Everyday Ethics: Moral Theology and the Practices of Ordinary Life. Prior to Wake Forest, he helped to launch The Oxford Character Project, where he remains an Associate Fellow. He is currently leading major grants to educate leaders of character at Wake Forest and beyond, including through the Educating Character Initiative, which is catalyzing a broader community focused on character in higher education.

Nico Perrino

Vice President, Foundation for Individual Rights & Expression

Nico Perrino is the executive vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech advocacy organization. For over a decade, he has hosted So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, the world’s most popular podcast dedicated to free speech issues. He was co-director and senior producer of Mighty Ira (2020), an award-winning documentary about the life and career of former ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser. His forthcoming book is Let the Other Side Speak: The Civil Libertarians Who Forged America’s Free Speech Century (BenBella, 2027).

Professor Bruce Murphy

F. M. Kirby Professor of Civil Rights, Lafayette College

Bruce Allen Murphy is the Fred Morgan Kirby Professor of Civil Rights at Lafayette College, where he has taught Constitutional Law, Civil Rights and Liberties, and American politics for the past 27 years. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Massachusetts and doctorate recipient from the University of Virginia, Murphy has authored a distinguished series of four biographies examining politically-active Supreme Court justices throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. His books include the nationally-acclaimed Scalia: A Court of One (Simon and Schuster, 2014), Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas (Random House, 2003), Fortas: The Rise and Ruin of a Supreme Court Justice (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and Robert F. Kennedy Book Award), and The Brandeis-Frankfurter Connection, which sparked a national debate about judicial ethics following a front-page New York Times story. He is also co-author of the textbook Approaching Democracy: American Government in Times of Challenge, now in its 10th edition.

Murphy’s passion for American history and politics began as a young boy in Abington, Massachusetts, inspired by conversations with his grandfather and his discovery of a plaque marking the spot where William Lloyd Garrison once spoke against slavery. This early fascination set him on a path to convey his love of American political history to students and the general public through his teaching, public lectures, and writing over a career spanning forty-seven years.

Professor Elisabeth Clemens

William Rainey Harper Distinguised Service Professor of Sociology, University of Chicago

Elisabeth S. Clemens (A.M. 1985, Ph.D 1990) is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago as well as a former Master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division. Her research explores the role of social movements and organizational innovation in political change. Clemens’ first book, The People’s Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in the United States, 1890-1925 (Chicago, 1997) received best book awards in both organizational sociology (1998) and political sociology (1999). She is also co-editor of Private Action and the Public Good (Yale, 1998), Remaking Modernity: Politics, History and Sociology (Duke, 2005), Politics and Partnerships: Voluntary Associations in America’s Past and Present (Chicago, 2010; winner of the 2012 Virginia Hodgkinson Research Prize from ARNOVA), and the journal Studies in American Political Development. She is now completing Civic Nation which traces the tense but powerful entanglements of benevolence and liberalism in the development of the American nation-state.

Professor Clemens has served terms as chair of both the political sociology and comparative historical sociology sections of the American Sociological Association, as a member of the Social Science Research Council Program on Philanthropy and the Third Sector, and as President of the Social Science History Association for 2012-13.

Rosie Taravella

Regional Vice President, American Red Cross

As Vice President for the American Red Cross Northeast Division, Rosie Taravella oversees all Red Cross disaster services, volunteer management, service to the Armed Forces, fundraising, and external relations within the nine states that make up the northeast, home to 57.8 million residents and is the most densely populated area in the country. Taravella joined the Red Cross in 2012 as regional chief executive officer of the American Red Cross of Central New York and was promoted to oversight of the state of New Jerey in 2018. In late 2025, she was promoted to her current position. During her tenure, Taravella developed strategies to increase mission delivery and employee and volunteer teamwork,  concentrated facility use for better utilization of donor dollars, and partnered with emergency management officials to develop community resilience and improve readiness for large-scale disasters.

Dr. Yuval Levin

Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, and a contributing editor at National Review.

Dr. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels. In addition to being interviewed frequently on radio and television, Dr. Levin has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – and Could Again (Basic Books, 2024). He holds an MA and PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Lindsay Chervinsky

Executive Director, George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon

Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a historian of the presidency, political culture, and the government. She is the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library. Her research can be found in publications from op-eds to books, speaking on podcasts and other media, and teaching for every kind of audience.

Dr. Chervinsky’s book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, was published on April 7, 2020 (paperback February 2022). She also co-edited Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture (February 20, 2023). She is a regular guest on podcasts and appears frequently on Listening to America podcast. She is the creator of the Audible course: The Best and Worst Presidential Cabinets in U.S. History.

Her newest book, Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents that Forged the Republic, was published on September 5, 2024.

Questions

For questions about the program, please contact Dave Cucchiara, Communications & Program Associate, at [email protected].