2027 Roots of American Order Faculty 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 over two 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

This three-day summer seminar is hosted on our Washington, DC campus for 20-25 junior faculty, teaching faculty, or full-time lecturers (five years of teaching experience or less, non-tenured).  The seminar will feature a series of Socratic discussion-based sessions (colloquy style) to delve deeply into the primary documents through textual analysis, moderated by seasoned faculty.  Faculty participants will read and discuss primary documents 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.  By focusing on the major contributing factors to the nation’s founding, the seminar will include discussion on how those factors continue to influence current discussions on public policy. 

Civic knowledge of America’s Founding, such as principles of self-government, consent, and liberty, is needed to confront the grave challenges our country faces today. Our objective is to provide focused preparation for how to teach about America’s Founding to the modern day administrative state utilizing primary texts, but also sharing a new way to teach through the lens of applied history, with history and public policy conjoining in engaging and thought-provoking ways.  We seek to equip faculty participants through a content pedagogical transfer of the material so they can teach a variation of the “Roots” course on their own campuses.  Colloquy discussions will include techniques to integrate documents into current and future teaching.

Junior faculty from the humanities, history, political science, economics, philosophy, public policy, and civics or those who teach freshmen seminar courses with open subject topics are especially encouraged to apply.

This program includes an excursion to George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, and dinner at the Mount Vernon Inn.

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.

What Faculty Say About Their Experience