By Katie Owens, Staff Writer
September seventeenth was Constitution Day, and Ouachita’s Sutton School of Social Sciences celebrated in a big way. Students were invited to come have cake, get mini versions of the Constitution and listen to members of Ouachita’s theatre program and student Senate read the words aloud. The event took place in Fuller Amphitheater, and was full of students eager to watch their friends read out our founding documents.
This year marked the two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, so the history department knew they had to commemorate it. While the Constitution itself has not been around for two-hundred and fifty years, they decided to host the event on the anniversary of its signing and read both the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence out loud. Professor Casey Motl, the organizer of this event, shared the importance of being familiar with what our founding documents say. “If you don’t remain engaged with the language of our republic, you forget. If you don’t exercise it, it’s going to atrophy, and that’s what we’re witnessing [in our country] right now. But the good news is that it’s a correctable tragedy, and remaining connected to the language of our founding documents keeps them present in the minds of every citizen.”
Motl also said that the decision to have people read the documents out loud was very intentional, saying, “There’s magic to the language and the way it expresses itself, and I think hearing it is a very different and more meaningful way of experiencing it than just reading it again on a page.” The speaking of the words to a large group was in fact inspired by our country’s history. “In the 18th century people didn’t have much by way of media to get information about what was happening in the world… a customary thing was for some sort of public official to go out in the common square and speak about what was happening… the town crier concept is what we’re working with here,” says Dr. Motl.
Kade Loomis, a member of the theatre department, closed out the reading of the Constitution for the event. When asked why he thought the history department had decided to have the students read it out loud, he replied, “It makes it ours. It’s not just like a constitution of our forefathers– it is ours. By being American, it is our birthright. By getting us involved, the professors are kind of passing that to us and saying, ‘Hey, look, it is yours. Take it, own it, take pride in it.’.”
This sentiment goes along with what Motl hoped his students would take from this event. ”We can always get better, and that is the fundamental civic obligation of every citizen in this republic,” he says. Be thinking, he continues, “What can I do in my little space, in my little corner of the country to make this country a more perfect union?”
We can only hope all the students that were in attendance to this first of its kind event will be thinking about these things, and that everyone, students and faculty alike, will take to heart the incredible words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence throughout their whole lives.
