Developing Courageous Citizens: Highlights from the 2026 TFAS Annual Conference

This special episode of Liberty + Leadership features highlights from the 2026 TFAS Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., where students, scholars, alumni and national leaders gathered around this year’s theme: Developing Courageous Citizens.

As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, TFAS is placing renewed focus on civic education, the American founding and the responsibility each generation bears in preserving a free society. Across keynote remarks, panel discussions and alumni reflections, this episode explores the institutions, principles and habits of character that sustain self-government.

Featured speakers include Vice President Mike Pence, Daniel Hannan, Lord of Kingsclere and many others. Together, they discuss America’s founding principles, constitutional government, civic education, economic freedom, free speech and the enduring importance of preparing young people to lead with courage, conviction and integrity.

The episode also highlights the lasting impact of TFAS programs through personal stories of intellectual formation, public service and lives shaped by encounters with the ideas of liberty both in the United States and around the world.

The Liberty + Leadership Podcast is hosted by TFAS president Roger Ream and produced by Podville Media. If you have a comment or question for the show, please email us at podcast@TFAS.org. To support TFAS and its mission, please visit TFAS.org/support.

Transcript

Welcome And Conference Purpose

SPEAKER_20 0:01

Welcome to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast, a conversation with TFAS alumni, faculty, and friends who are making an impact today. I'm your host, Roger Reim. This past March, TFAS hosted its annual conference here in Washington, D.C., bringing together students, scholars, alumni, and leaders from across the country for a series of conversations focused on this year's theme, developing courageous citizens. The conference comes at a pivotal moment in our nation's history as we approach our 250th anniversary. America 250 is a central focus of TFAS programming this year with initiatives designed to revisit the principles of the American founding and to help prepare the next generation to understand and carry them forward. Over the past two episodes, we brought you full conversations from the conference, including my discussion with Mark Levin and a panel called Did Adam Smith attend the Constitutional Convention featuring Ann Bradley and Ted Tucker, moderated by Dominic Pino. This episode is a little different. Today we're sharing a collection of some of the most memorable moments from across the conference, drawn from keynote remarks, panel discussions, and alumni testimonials. We'll begin with perspective from someone helping to lead the America 250 effort at the national level. Brittany Baldwin serves as senior policy advisor on the White House Task Force 250 and is playing a key role in planning America's 250th anniversary. She underscores the opportunity this moment in time presents, not just to reflect on our history, but to come together and renew the principles that have defined the American experiment.

SPEAKER_12 1:56

I have to say, it is really special to be able to address the Fund for American Studies. You know, never thought I would be able to, and I also never thought when I studied American Studies that I would be in a position to now get to help lead America's 250th birthday. So I feel incredibly honored and humbled to do so because just to kind of set the tone from the beginning, I think our country in general is very good at coming together in times of crisis. But we're not as good at coming together in times of celebration. And I think the 250th anniversary gives us a very unique opportunity to come together in a time of celebration and to remember those values that have always defined the American spirit and that have always enabled us to be successful and to overcome every single obstacle, including those that we are facing right now. This is a chance to unite around this simple principle that we use as our tagline to celebrate the triumph of the American spirit. Because it's that American spirit that has enabled our country to do so many incredible things, from the Wright brothers taking off on the first flight to Henry Ford creating the Model T to innovation in Silicon Valley, to Americans being able to pursue their dreams, having started with nothing and becoming many different things of what they could have never imagined themselves. This is really what this year is about. And to think, okay, none of us are Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin for that matter, but all of us in our own way can take part in bringing this celebration and bringing those principles that we hold so dear to our own communities so that together we can renew truly what has always made this country the most exceptional nation on the face of the planet.

The Question Beneath The Festivities

SPEAKER_20 3:52

The 250th anniversary is not just about looking back. It's an opportunity to come together around the ideas that have defined the American experience. In her full remarks, Brittany outlined some of the events planned to mark the anniversary, from the lighting of the Washington Monument to the Great American State Fair and even the Freedom 250 Grand Prix. But underneath all of that is a deeper question What is it exactly that we're celebrating? Why has the American system endured and what makes it worth preserving? For that, we turn to Lord Daniel Hannon, a member of the UK House of Lords and the TFAS America 250 Visiting Fellow.

SPEAKER_23 4:39

There was a demonstration going on just at the base of this statue today of a lot of fellow Latin Americans complaining about ICE and campaigning against being deported, which I guess in a way, first of all, it's great that you have demonstrations, right? And not all of the countries that they'd come from would have permitted that. It also shows that they're kind of assimilated enough to have done that classic American thing of taking the good things for granted and moaning about them, right? They didn't take long. And this is really what I want to talk to you about. Why we shouldn't be blasé, why you, above all, should not be blasé about this extraordinary republic, which is your inheritance wherever your parents were from, which is the inheritance of all of you here. And the secret of its success lies in those national archives. That's the reason that the people outside were complaining about not being deported from here rather than the other way around. It's why there isn't an ice in El Salvador deporting the gringos back to here. It's why no Mexican politician has ever had to say, I'm gonna build a wall and I'm gonna get the Yankees to pay for it. There is a reason the population movement is overwhelmingly one way. And it's worth just pausing for a second and considering why that is. It's not because of some magical property in your soil or your water or your skies or your gene pool. The reason that the movement has been overwhelmingly one way is because you have the institutions that have elevated and ennobled your system of government and have created a space for freedom where the government is constrained and where your representatives are servants rather than rulers. And the proof of that is the sheer longevity of the institutions under which you are governed. In the time that you have still been on your first constitution, the countries of my native Latin America have been through 312. They've lurched from one regime to another. And in a way, that's a very natural thing to do. You guys are the outliers. It's the most obvious human thing to say, we are the good guys, the people we've just defeated are the bad guys, we're gonna arrange the system so that people like them don't come back. We're a tribal species, we're social primates, we we think that way. What an amazing thing in this republic to have elevated a process above outcome, to be willing to accept the rules when they go against you, to be willing to accept election results when you lose, to be willing to obey laws that you think foolish, to be willing to pay taxes that you almost certainly correctly assume are going to be put to bad use. And that is the miracle contained in those parts. They are the key that unlocks the 250 years. They are the secret of your success.

The Declaration As Shared Thought

SPEAKER_20 7:49

Daniel Hannan underlined that the strength of the American system is not just in its outcomes, it's in the structure that makes those outcomes possible. Institutions that constrain power, a system that elevates process over momentary advantage. But where did those ideas come from? And how did the founding generation arrive at a shared understanding of liberty, government, and human nature that could sustain a republic over time? This idea is explored in a conversation moderated by TFAS Professor Samuel Goldman. Professor Goldman and Hillsdale College Professor Matt Spaulding take us back to the Declaration of Independence and what Thomas Jefferson meant when he described it as an expression of the American mind.

SPEAKER_09 8:38

I thought we might begin our conversation by starting with the title of your book, which, as you mentioned in your remarks, is an allusion to a statement by Jefferson in a letter that he wrote to Henry Lee in 1825. This is one of these primary documents that I think all students should read. And in that letter, he says that the declaration was neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing. It was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion. What did he mean by an expression of the American mind?

SPEAKER_21 9:24

That's a good question. And I use that specifically to draw attention to what I think is happening here. We sometimes, I think, misread this document, which is why I emphasize the Continental Congress and the committee and its editings. This is not something that kind of jumped out of Jefferson's mind. And it's also not something that, say, is merely hackneyed or copied from John Locke. It's something more than that. Right around that same time, Adams wrote another letter saying that Declan was actually hackneyed, which Jefferson did not take as an insult. Hackneyed meant it is so commonplace that we all know what you're talking about. And he said this had been debated in the air for at least two years in the Continental Congress and for some time before that. So I think Jefferson, from his letters, and I think this is the best of them on this particular point, understood himself as the drafter of the declaration. I give him all credit for being a beautiful writer, but he drafted the declaration to capture that moment, that debate, and all the things in the declaration. I actually could find nothing in the declaration that is absolutely different, such that it does not exist in a previous document of the Continental Congress. He was bringing it together beautifully, but he meant to draw it all into one thing, which was a mind. He says there is only one opinion on this side of the water. This is that opinion. And I want to capture it in the declaration.

Consent Of The Governed Defined

SPEAKER_20 10:47

The Declaration of Independence was not the product of a single mind, but the culmination of a shared set of ideas that had been debated, refined, and ultimately embraced by the American people. And at the center of those ideas is a principle that defines the entire system of consent of the governed, meaning that government derives its legitimacy from the people. In a panel moderated by TFAS America 250 program lead Lindsay Craig, Jay LePaire of the Free Society Coalition, and TFAS senior scholar Don Devine connect these ideas to the structure of the American system.

SPEAKER_15 11:28

We're going to talk about what the founders originally intended with this concept of consent of the governed, how that has changed and been adapted over time, and what we can do to get back to it. So I think we should start off with defining it. But let me have uh Jay, why don't you start off?

SPEAKER_06 11:45

Great. Well, first of all, thanks. It's uh it's an honor to be here. And consent of the governed and courageous citizens, and that whole theme, I think, is uh so fundamental to what we believe. And it has to start with independent thinking and a depth of understanding that gives you the courage to actually know what we're talking about. So the Free Society Coalition, the group that I'm with, has focused on the evergreen values that are stated in the declaration and particularly the moral claims that we have to my life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, and the idea that that's the constraint on the consent of the governed. Because otherwise, if you have a government with a purpose, it's to protect as maximum liberty. We know we need the government, but we need it to also have the constraints. And I think that links into the consent of the governed.

SPEAKER_05 12:34

When you ask me what the founders intended with the consent of the government, what did they intend is find a way to justify how do we start this new country? All right. The British have God behind them. All right, God is who gives me divine right of kings, all right? What can I come up with something to balance that? Well, what they come up with is people. And that's how they justify the consent of the governor, is the people. The people give the legitimacy of them to create this new country that they create. It's a very practical political problem they have to deal with, and they deal with that by coming up with the concept of the people in the states that call themselves states uh right from the Declaration, and they say the people's job is to legitimize the government. And that's what they wanted it to do. So it doesn't happen for another 10, 11 years. They come up with this idea of the Constitution. And it's very important to link the Constitution to the Declaration, I think.

SPEAKER_06 13:54

You need both. You need the ideals, and then you need the practical tools to how do you institutionalize those. And if you go back to uh what we all believe, freedom is essential to human progress and cannot be sustained without an ethical base. I think that Franklin had a quote that I loved. It was, a virtuous and industrious people may be cheaply governed. And I think it's fair for us to say that is not what we have today. And that without liberty and without virtue, we will invariably find ourselves with no off-ramp to uh the populist game. So the consent of the governed has to be limited by the moral right of individuals.

Separation Of Powers Under Pressure

SPEAKER_20 14:40

The ideas of the Declaration provide the foundation for our nation, but they only endure if they are carried into practice through a system that both empowers and limits government. That's where the Constitution comes in, because preserving liberty is not just about where authority comes from. It's about how the authority is structured and constrained. In a panel moderated by TFES Law Fellowship Advisory Committee member Ilya Shapiro, retired U.S. Circuit Court appellate judge Janice Rogers Brown and Robert Alt of the Buckeye Institute examined the role of separation of powers and what happens when that balance begins to break down.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Separation of powers. You know, why is it important? Why do we care about it? Is it just something that you learned about in high school, maybe in college, if you took Matt Spaulding's class, and that's about it? What's unique about America, certainly at its founding and remains to this day, how seriously we uh at least uh discuss these things, is the structure, separation of powers, the Madison insight, right? My favorite Federalist paper, 51 if men were angels, no government would be necessary. Utopia, if angels govern men, perfect government. The problem is man governs man, and so you need to empower the government to protect our liberties while at the same time obliging it to check itself.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

We have Madison, who's I think accurately described as the father of the Constitution, and he basically said if you put all of these powers together, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, you have created the very definition of tyranny. So, of course, that was very important to the founders, both I think, because they feared tyranny and wanted to do everything they could to prevent us from falling into that circumstance, but also because I believe they thought this idea of separation of powers added to good government. And uh they looked at it on both sides, both to protect us from tyranny and to make us actually better citizens. The administrative state gets started, and that does away with the idea of separation of powers. It consolidates within these administrative agencies the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. They make the rules, they decide who has violated the rules, they then decide what the punishment should be. So they have actually reconstituted this idea of you know one entity having all of this power.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

But Robert, now it seems like the Supreme Court at least is trying to push back on that. We've overturned Chevron deference, so courts won't just assume that agencies have broad authorities unless Congress has specifically given it to them. So are we are we on the rebound?

SPEAKER_16 17:50

So yeah, with that question, I've been given, I think, that the tough assignment of providing hope to the room, given what you've just heard. Everyone in this room, if you are a good TFAS member, you actually have read the Constitution, you believe what it says, then you actually come to Washington and you see these agencies that are the accumulation of executive, legislative, and judicial power all under one roof, it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't comport with the Constitution. The founders trusted the people, the progressive trusted the expert class. And that the progressives trusted the expert class meant that they sought to insulate the experts from the people, from any political checks. The progressive system is specifically designed. It is a feature, not a glitch, to try and take these experts and make it so that they are not accountable to the people.

SPEAKER_01 18:41

This idea, the ennobling idea of America, is human equality and the idea of consent. And so when we cede our prerogatives to the administrative state, we really are ceding self-government.

Rebuilding Civic Education And Virtue

SPEAKER_20 18:58

The separation of powers was designed to prevent the concentration of authority and to preserve self-government. But as you just heard, that balance only holds if it is understood and maintained. And that brings us to the critical point that the constitutional system is only as strong as the citizens who sustain it. If citizens don't understand how it works or why it matters, uh the system itself will begin to erode. In a panel moderated by TFES's own Joe Stars, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, Victoria Hughes, and Brenda Hefera discuss the state of civic education in the United States and what it will take to rebuild an informed and engaged citizenry.

SPEAKER_19 19:44

So Judge, I'd like to start with you. Let's talk about how our founding fathers envisioned civics, what was civics to them, what was civics education, and throughout this discussion, in addition to talking about the problem, define what is civic education. So Judge Ginsberg.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

The founders were acutely sensitive to the fact that having created a new form of government, an extended republic, a republic responsive to the will of citizens, was going to take a new type of citizen, a new skill in order to maintain this form of government over time. And each of the three I've mentioned here, the four, pardon me, were dedicated specifically to the idea that there ought to be a national or educational foundation that would build what we're now calling courageous citizens today, informed and engaged citizens to make this system work, is highly dependent upon the people being engaged. Now, there were three million of them then. We're 330 million now. The challenge is maybe somewhat greater, but the idea is exactly the same. I think you've probably been able to take a look at some of those points right there. Knowledge as well as virtue. An important aspect of this uh concept of civics education is civics virtue. But the civics mission has languished uh in our schools over the primarily uh from the latter part of the 20th century. I would date it from the Vietnam War, actually. And you can see the plunge that uh took place there in civics. Government courses continue to be offered. Most students going through high school have an option for a government course. But there used to be a government course, a civics course, and something called problems of democracy, which was discussion of current issues. A very important training ground for students who are, if they're going to be engaged, to uh be aware of issues, to learn how to debate and discuss. And obviously, we've lost a lot of ground there because we are so disinclined to listen to each other and compromise.

SPEAKER_19 21:54

Victoria, talk a little bit more about citizenship and what Is civic education, is it just government? Is it history?

SPEAKER_11 22:03

Is it more? The common ground that we can accept across the whole range of American people and the range of civic educators, our goal is a knowledgeable and engaged citizen who understands the principles of our constitutional self-government, who can think independently, who can behave civill, and who will engage productively in their local community, and perhaps even some step up for a leadership role in their country. And that's really what I think civic education needs to keep their eye on that goal. I believe that this great anniversary year is the year that we can really begin to build sustained educational programs to produce the courageous citizens we're here to talk about today. We can't stop. We need to keep going. July 5th is the beginning.

SPEAKER_19 23:04

Brenda, all of us know that education doesn't just happen in the classroom. It's transmitted through the family and through other entities, particularly those places in America that are sacred and special to us. So talk a little bit about your research, why this is a concern for you, and some of the battles that you've uh encountered along the way.

SPEAKER_13 23:25

So who here has gone to a historic site, places like Gettysburg, Monticello, Mount Vernon? Yep. Who here has taken their children or their grandchildren to those places? Now imagine that those opportunities were lost. Or instead of being positive and informative in experiences, those visits fostered resentment in ourselves and towards our country. And I think we're at a crossroads when it comes to our historic sites. They're not totally captured, but they are trending in a concerning direction. And I think that evidences both the urgency of the moment and the opportunity to provide a vision. And the vision that I would like is that Americans, especially America's children, will be able to go to Mount Vernon and learn how George Washington formed an American national character, which was an exceptional project for an exceptional man. And then to go to Monticello and give all honor to Jefferson, who had the foresight to introduce into a merely revolutionary document an abstract principle applicable to all men and all times. And to go to Montpelier and reflect that a Virginia scholar who cared first about America made possible the miracle of Philadelphia. Through truthful commemorations, generations come to know and rediscover the American story, to learn that not only is that story remarkable, but that it belongs to us, that we are invited to participate in the great experiment in self-government. And there is tremendous hope in that.

Historic Sites And Honest Commemoration

SPEAKER_20 25:23

From the beginning, the founders understood that self-government would require citizens who not only knew the principles of the Constitution, but had the habits and character that sustained them. But that challenge goes beyond civic knowledge alone. It also touches on how we understand our most fundamental freedoms and whether we still see them in the same way the founders did. In a panel moderated by TFAS's Ryan Wolfe, Ryan Bangert of the Alliance Defending Freedom and Karin Hajar of the Washington Post opinion reflect on the state of free speech today, the gap between legal protections and cultural attitudes, and what's at stake if that understanding continues to erode.

SPEAKER_16 26:08

What are your greatest hopes for the First Amendments and greatest fears in the coming years? So, Ryan, we can start with you and then I can go to Karine.

SPEAKER_08 26:18

It's a very large question. My greatest hope for the First Amendment is that we recover an understanding of how the founders viewed our rights. If you go all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, the founders were in agreement about, they were in disagreement about a lot of things. No question. But they were largely in agreement about one thing. And that was that our rights to free speech, our rights to religious liberty are fundamentally natural rights possessed by all of us. They're not gifted by the government. They are what we call pre-political. They're not something that the government simply gives to us as a benefit. They're retained by us as human beings. They're part of our DNA as human beings. You know, I'm a religious person. I work at ADF, believe that we're made in the image of God. And God is a speaking God. He's someone who speaks. And if we are made truly in his image, we too speak as fundamental to our nature, to communicate, to live in community. And using speech, using words, practicing devotion in religion are inherent to our nature. It's not something the government has the right to take away from us. And so my greatest hope is that this coming generation, and I have two kids who are in Gen Z right now, so I'm like the old person on this stage, but my hope is that my kids understand that their right to speak, their right to exercise their religion is not a gift given to them by the government. And it's not something that they can call on the government to protect them from when others are exercising those rights. It's something that we have an obligation to exercise responsibly and well, but ultimately it's inherent to who we are as human beings. And my greatest fear, of course, is that education doesn't happen, that the formation fails, that we simply have a generation who grows up with an understanding that these are not truly rights in any sense of being natural rights, that are simply just a gift from the government that can be snatched away just as easily as they can be dispensed upon the latest crisis or the latest hysteria that arises. And so that's my hope and my fear.

Free Speech As A Natural Right

SPEAKER_17 28:21

I really hope that we recover the spirit that the founders had, especially their gratitude for free speech. They they knew it living under the crown, under the thumb of the crown. What kind of threats could happen if you wanted to share your ideas? And back to your point about it being a rambunctious crowd in colonial times. I want us to regain some of that spirit. People are so scared about offending each other, especially since we're talking about college campuses a lot on college campuses. It's not necessarily a mandate or a rule that's stopping young people from speaking. It's the fear of offending each other, it's the fear of saying something dangerous to each other. And I want young people to regain the excitement of being able to trade ideas and to work towards a better outcome in that way. So I think that there's a lot to learn from the founders in the way that they debated. And even, you know, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were able to reconcile in the end after quite a tumultuous political relationship. They lambassed each other both in their writing and political career, and still were able to be friends at the end of their life. So that's sort of the spirit that I would like to see both in the broader public, but especially on university campuses.

SPEAKER_20 29:28

If these freedoms are understood as natural and enduring, then preserving them depends on whether each generation understands them in that way. And that kind of understanding does not happen on its own. It has to be taught, reinforced, and developed over time. In another panel moderated by TFAS America 250 program lead, Lindsay Craig, David Bop of the Bill of Rights Institute, and Wilfred McClay of Hillsdale College speak directly to that endeavor, focusing on the role of teachers and the importance of cultivating both knowledge and civic virtue in the classroom.

SPEAKER_15 30:06

You know, both of you work with faculty. So I wanted to, and our faculty, um, but I wonder if you could speak a little bit about how you speak to the teachers on how they can make sure that they are developing courageous citizens within their classroom so that they can both identify the problem and then speak to the solutions. David?

SPEAKER_22 30:29

I want to start with a data point that some of you may be familiar with. The Knight Foundation did a survey a few years ago. I think the results would still hold true today. And they asked students across the United States in high school about their relationship to their peers. 56% of high school students said that they feel comfortable disagreeing with their peers in the classroom. 56%. That means that two out of five do not. That's what we see borne out across the country. That our teachers are grappling with an educational challenge in the classroom and with extracurriculars as well, but let's stick in the classroom for a second, where there's a kind of walking on eggshells. And courage is lacking. Think of it though from the perspective of a teenager. I'll give you another data point. Child psychologist uh mentioned to me that 86% of the adjectives that we use about teenagers are negative. Now I can tell you, as the father of two teenagers at this point, I sometimes have fallen into that category. But it kind of hit me. And I was thinking, you know, every year on Constitution Day, we kind of have this ritualistic flogging of our teachers and teenagers. And we say we're really bad at this stuff. And then we have to think, you know, well, what makes us really good? What makes us really good is by giving kids knowledge. That's something that we can impart to them. They have to want to do it just like they have to want to acquire virtue. But you can't love what you don't know. And I think we're here to talk about our affective as well as the intellectual. And there's an important relationship. And I think as much as we want to see pride instilled in Americans as we go forward, patriotism is vital and an incredibly important end. But the byproduct of sound civics is gratitude. And if you don't have those working principles in your mind and heart, if you can't articulate them, you're not going to be able to have the kind of exchanges that build out that knowledge.

Teaching Courage Gratitude And Love

SPEAKER_02 32:30

I think achieving knowledge is great, is a great beginning, a necessary, an indispensable beginning. But these habits of the heart, love, I think you're right, that love is at the heart of the matter. And I think a lot of our young people don't even know what it would mean to love their country. They have been habituated to an entirely critical view of it. And furthermore, they don't have the ability, many of them, to think beyond the present, to have a sense of connection to and loyalty to things larger than themselves, including transcendent things, transcendent values. Everything is the here and now, with their faces buried in their telephones. Uh, and we need to wrench them out of that. Exactly how you do it. I try to do it myself, and and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But it's all a larger frame of mind that has to be changed.

Pence On Integrity Under Testing

SPEAKER_20 33:33

Civic education is not just about what students know, it's about who they become. Developing courageous citizens means forming habits, building confidence, and preparing young people to engage with difficult ideas and real challenges. Ultimately, that formation has to carry beyond the classroom. It has to show up in the way people live, lead, and serve. In a conversation with TFAS alumnus Eric Cohen of the TICFA Fund and the 48th Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, they discuss character, faith, and public service and offer advice to young people considering a life in leadership.

SPEAKER_18 34:14

What would your most important piece of advice be to a young Christian looking to get into politics? How can we balance the political world while sticking to the principles of our faith?

SPEAKER_07 34:26

I'm terribly intrigued by the theme of this conference, developing courageous citizens. I always tell young people when I'm traveling around the country that there's a lie going around in this generation, that somehow adversity creates character. The way young people put it is whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger. And there was a philosopher who said that years ago. Well, I disagree with that from my own experience in the cauldron of public life. I think whatever doesn't kill you just didn't kill you. And I'm saying this to the young people in the room because folks with hair the same color as mine already know this. Adversity doesn't create character. Adversity reveals character. And when your time of testing comes, and it will come, it comes for all of us, in large ways and in small ways. The degree to which you are going to be a man or woman of integrity and keep your word, whether it be to your family, whether it be to your employer, whether it be that you raised your right hand to put on the uniform of the United States or become a police officer or public official and ended with a prayer, so help me God. Your ability to keep faith with that promise, I think, will be defined by what you've done on every quiet day before that day comes. Adversity doesn't create character, adversity reveals character. When I first uh came to my faith in college, I had been interested in politics, Eric, for most of my youth. But truthfully, I after I came to a personal faith in Christ, I thought I was gonna have to make a decision between going into politics or living out my faith. So that's what I'd say to young people is you don't have to choose between a life of public service. In fact, I would offer the men and women of integrity, of Christian faith, of Jewish faith, and people of sincere belief coming into public life is absolutely a wellspring for this country. And not only would I encourage you to do it, but we need you to do it, to keep this experiment alive and vibrant for another 250 years. But take this time in your life as young people to grow in your strength and your appreciation, your understanding of the American experiment, of the faith foundations that underpin it, what that means to you personally. Be courageous, step forward and do the work. And your future and America's future will be better for it.

Alumni Stories That Prove The Point

SPEAKER_20 37:04

Vice President Mike Pence delivers a powerful call to action to live with integrity, to prepare for moments of challenge, and to step forward in service when the time comes. That kind of preparation doesn't happen overnight. It's built over time through experiences that challenge assumptions, develop judgment, and give young people the opportunity to engage seriously with the principles that shape a free society. That's exactly what TFAS programs are designed to do, bringing students together from across the country and around the world, exposing them to foundational ideas, encouraging debate and discussion, and equipping them with the intellectual tools and confidence to think independently and lead as courageous citizens. Jean Schindler is a TFAS alumna who first encountered that experience in her 2006 TFAS program in Hong Kong.

SPEAKER_14 38:02

I first experienced TFAS on the hillside campus of Hong Kong University, surrounded by students from across Asia, many of whom were traveling outside of their countries for the first time. At the heart of that experience and what I experienced in Hong Kong was something simple but important. TFAS invites students to wrestle with the hardest, most perennial questions about human freedom. What does it mean to live in a free society? How do we preserve liberty when the world is changing so rapidly? And when our institutions are under real strain, how do we discover what principles are real? And in this year of America's 250th anniversary, I can think of no mission more important than that. Students today are braced for uncertainty. The tectonic plates of the global order are moving. Technology is transforming everything. Political polarization feels overwhelming. But the tools students need today are the same tools I gained in Hong Kong and the same tools that students have always needed. Critical reasoning, independent judgment, respectful disagreement, and the confidence to ask uncomfortable questions. Because while the challenges America faces at age 250 are serious, they're not unprecedented. American history is almost defined by chaos and change. We have survived intense political polarization before. Every generation feels its crises are unprecedented. And every uncertainty lived in real time feels worse than anything that is passed and resolved. But American history, while failing to give us easy answers, can give us a powerful sense of perspective. And I draw from it the lesson that free societies endure when citizens learn how to think clearly, ask difficult questions, and look beyond the anxieties of the moment. And these are the concepts that are at the core of the TFAS mission.

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Jean's experience underscores the importance of bringing students together and giving them the tools to think clearly and engage courageously with the world around them. And for many alumni, that experience extends far beyond the classroom. For Dan McConkie, a TFAS trustee and former Illinois State Senator, his TFAS experience shaped the course of his life.

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When you graduate college and you're not quite sure what to do with your life, you apply to grad school, and I had gotten an invitation from the fund again. And what it said was we invite you to join one of our international programs. At the same time that I had applied to go to the Prague program, there was a young lady by the name of Mileta, who was 5,000 miles away in the former Soviet bloc country of Bulgaria, who made a deal with her boyfriend. They had gotten promotional materials from the Fund for American Studies, and they had said they were both going to apply. And so the acceptance letters came, and Milena was approved, and her boyfriend was not. Because she became the love of my life. We ended up getting married. We became supporters of the Fund for American Studies. But interestingly enough, what the fund did was actually fundamentally change both of our lives. So my wife and I, we lived together for over 28 years, just had a wonderful experience, as I mentioned, kind of professionally as well as personally. In February of last year, my wife, Milena McConkey, passed away from complications of cancer that she had gotten from Chernobyl. The day before she passed, she made me make a deal with her. And that deal was that we were going to start a scholarship fund for kids from her home country and from the country of Ukraine, to which she was very, very concerned about, so that these kids would have the same opportunity that she had, that there would be scholarships available so that they would be able to go and hear about freedom, to hear about economic liberty, to hear the message that TFAS puts forward. And that's what we did.

What We Carry Into America 250

Fife Drums And A Whistler

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Dan is a powerful reminder that the impact of these programs is not always immediate or predictable. Sometimes it unfolds over years, even decades, in ways that shape not just careers, but families, communities, and future generations. Across all of these discussions from our annual TFAS conference, you hear a consistent theme the principles of the American founding still matter. The structure of our system still matters and the responsibility to understand and carry those ideas forward remains as important as ever. That's especially true as we approach our nation's 250th anniversary. And through its America 250 programming, TFAS will continue to engage students and teachers and leaders across the country in a renewed focus on civic education, the founding and the development of courageous citizens. Before we close, I want to leave you with a very special moment from the conference because no TFAST gathering that celebrates the founding of our great country would be complete without Fife and Drums. And hearing the talents of Chris Allman, TFAS trustee and grand champion whistler. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Liberty and Leadership Podcast. If you have a comment or question, please drop us an email at podcast at TFAS.org. And be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app and leave a five star review. Liberty and Leadership is produced at Podville Media. I'm your host, Roger Reim, and until next time, show courage in things large and small.