2027 Roots of American Order Summer Certificate Seminar

Like few public policy programs in America, Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy began as a response to the state of the public policy discipline as opposed to some reorganization of existing social science departments. The founding argument was that American policy makers and public leaders needed to understand not only the “how” of public policy (political science and economics), but the “why” of public policy (history and political philosophy).

The current national debates about whether America was founded in 1776 or 1619 are more than quibbles about dates; they are fundamental disagreements over both national identity and the principles that undergird free societies, and they are influencing a variety of current policy debates, from America's role in the world to AI policy.

To this consequential argument, the late historian Russell Kirk raised a provocative question: What if America’s origins were in neither 1776 nor 1619, and were not even in America, but in Old Testament Israel, Greece in the 7th Century BC, Rome in the 3rd Century AD, and England in the Middle Ages? Both the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution did not just spring from contemporary thinking, but are grounded in centuries’ old conceptions of human nature, citizenship, and the role of government.

This question was much on Kirk’s mind as he took up residence on Pepperdine University’s Malibu campus in 1973 to pen what would become his magnum opus, The Roots of American Order. This book title and broader argument of understanding America’s founding as a realization of debates and themes dating back millennia, serve as the foundation of one of Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy’s core classes: “Roots of American Order: What is Public Policy?.” For almost three decades, this course has prepared future policy makers to consider America’s exceptional founding, and why this broader conception of the nation can be applied to today’s policy debates.

About the Program

In this one-week intensive summer seminar hosted on the Malibu campus, targeting 75-100 top undergraduate students, the School of Public Policy's goal is to assemble a diverse cohort of students from both public and private universities to learn about the American Founding, the Crisis of the House Divided, the Progressive era, and the rise of the administrative state through the distinctive lens and in the spirit of the “Roots of American Order” course. This tailored seminar will not only teach students about the major contributing factors to the nation’s exceptional founding and enduring legacy, but will culminate at the end of the week. with how those factors continue to influence current policy debates. 

Civic knowledge to defend and support America’s Founding principles of self-government, consent, and liberty is needed to confront the grave challenges our country faces today. The objective is to provide undergraduate students the opportunity to understand and appreciate the uniqueness of the American experiment, why it has been able to successfully endure for 250 years, and explore why it is worth fighting to maintain and to celebrate. 

Pepperdine seeks to develop leaders in civic virtue so they can utilize this knowledge on their college campuses, in their communities, and in their future vocations. 

The core feature of the program is a series of discussion-based participant colloquy sessions to delve deeply into primary documents, led by faculty members in small groups of 12 students, with additional plenary lectures. Students will read a range of primary documents in preparation for the seminar colloquy discussions.

The program includes a midweek excursion to the Reagan Presidential Library Museum and Air Force One in Simi Valley, California.

Faculty Leadership: Abbylin Sellers

Abbylin H. Sellers is the Edward L. Gaylord Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University in the School of Public Policy.  She teaches welfare policy and the core curriculum courses on great books and foundations of American constitutionalism, which lay a foundation for effective public policy solutions being guided by moral and ethical principles.

Before joining Pepperdine University, she was a professor of American Politics at Azusa Pacific University where she taught courses on the constitutional presidency, Congress and the legislative process, women and the political process, civil discourse in an age of political polarization, and served as a faculty fellow in the Honors College teaching American democracy for the Honors College. Sellers was awarded the university’s highest honor for teaching, the Teaching Excellence award in 2017.

Her research focuses on welfare policy, political behavior, and immigrant entrepreneurship, with her work appearing in Political Psychology; Politics, Groups, and Identities; Presidential Studies Quarterly; and the Journal of Military History.  Her co-authored work has been recognized by the American Political Science Association for “Best Paper” for the Representation and Electoral Systems section in 2018.  Sellers was awarded as a 2022-2023 Fulbright Scholar to teach American constitutionalism and the constitutional presidency in Japan at Yokohama National University and Hosei University (Tokyo). She annually serves on the summer faculty for the James Madison Foundation’s Summer Institute in Washington, DC.

Sellers earned her B.A. from Westmont College, M.A. in public policy from Regent University, and Ph.D. in political science from Claremont Graduate University.