Newman University and the Notre Dame Club of Wichita will present Vincent Phillip Munoz, Ph.D. as guest speaker for this year’s Hesburgh/Constitution Day Lecture at 7 p.m. on Oct. 4 in the Dugan-Gorges Conference Center on the Newman campus, 3100 McCormick in Wichita. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Munoz will address the issue, “Did the Founding Fathers Intend to Separate Church from State?” Munoz is currently Tocqueville associate professor of religion and public life at the University of Notre Dame.
“Dr. Munoz has spent his career studying the lives and writings of the Founding Fathers in ways that can move us beyond our current, highly polarized political atmosphere. His talk will give the audience a nuanced, full-bodied portrayal of the important role that religion played in the early American republic,” said Newman University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michael Austin, Ph.D.
Munoz writes and teaches across the fields of constitutional law, American politics, and political philosophy. He is the author of God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson. He is currently completing a second book, which is on the original meaning of the Constitution’s religion clauses. Articles from that project have appeared in Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy and University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law.
Munoz has also published articles in American Political Science Review, The Review of Politics, The Wall Street Journal, and The Claremont Review of Books. His media appearances include commentary on Voice of America Radio, Fox News Channel, and Turkish Public Television. He has also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the matter of “Hostility to Religious Expression in the Public Square.”
Munoz received his bachelor of arts from Claremont McKenna College in 1993. He then received his masters of arts from Boston College in 1995 and his doctoral degree from Claremont Graduate School in 2001.
