Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor and director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard University, will deliver a public talk as part of the at 4 p.m. March 27 in McKenna Hall, Rooms 215/216, and .
The lecture, titled 鈥�,鈥� is co-sponsored by the , part of the University鈥檚 , and will also serve as the .
Allen will reflect on this year鈥檚 as she explores ways to revitalize democracy in the United States. She will also discuss why she believes the path to health lies in rebuilding a supermajority of people from all political ideologies who are ready to work together to support constitutional democracy.
University President ., will offer words of welcome, and , the John M. Regan, Jr. Director of the Kroc Institute, will introduce Allen and the Hesburgh Lecture series. , the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough 91视频, will facilitate a discussion after the lecture, followed by a reception and book signing.
A professor of political philosophy, ethics and public policy, Allen is also a renowned author and advocate. In addition to writing and editing numerous books on democracy, she is a contributing columnist at The Atlantic and wrote a column on constitutional democracy for the Washington Post from 2008 to 2024.
In 2020, Allen was awarded the Library of Congress鈥� Kluge Prize, which rewards scholarly achievement in the disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize. The Library of Congress recognized Allen for 鈥渉er internationally recognized scholarship in political theory and her commitment to improving democratic practice and civics education.鈥�
Allen is the founder and chairperson of the board for the nonprofit organization Partners in Democracy, which seeks to scale up civic education curricula and democracy renovation policies. She served as chair of the Mellon Foundation from 2015 to 2019, and currently she chairs the board of the nonprofit FairVote and co-chairs the Our Common Purpose Commission at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the country鈥檚 first-ever Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience; her team鈥檚 policies were adopted in federal legislation and a presidential executive order. Allen was also a lead author on the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a framework for securing excellence in history and civic education for all learners in grades K-12. Released in 2021, the framework was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Department of Education.
Since its establishment in 2005, each year the Notre Dame Forum invites campus-wide dialogue about issues of importance to the University, the nation and the larger world.
Allen鈥檚 lecture is also the 2025 . This annual lecture was established by the Kroc Institute in 1995 to honor the late Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of Notre Dame, a global champion of peace and justice and the founder of the Kroc Institute. Each year a distinguished scholar, policymaker and/or peace advocate is invited by the Kroc Institute director to deliver a major lecture on an issue related to ethics and public policy in the context of peace and justice.