NEWS

Dr. Jeffery R. Hankins, an assistant professor of history at Louisiana Tech, has been selected to participate in the 2009 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute dealing with “The Rule of Law: Teaching Legal Studies in the Liberal Arts.”

Hankins, who will attend the institute June 15 to July 22 at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, received a stipend to attend and will work with several scholars in fields such as jurisprudence, English literature, history and religious studies. Besides lectures and seminar discussions, Hankins will also be able to develop his own syllabus for a future course at Tech concerning law and history. The course would be interdisciplinary and would attract students interested in political science, history, English and other Liberal Arts fields.

“I am honored to be chosen to participate in this rigorous NEH Institute,” Hankins said. “I hope to combine my knowledge of history and my legal background to further explore the ‘rule of law’ in Western civilization. The experience and materials I gain from this Institute should help me to develop a new interdisciplinary course that crosses many of the liberal arts fields.”

This Institute will explore the meaning and consequences of attachment to the rule of law. Combining history, literature, religion and political science, it will begin with the assumption that there is nothing natural about the rule of law. Instead, law has a history and has evolved in time and place.

Written by Judith Roberts