Dr. Rodney Harris of Williams Baptist University took part in announcing a new project to study the Arkansas Constitution this week. Harris, chair of the Department of History and Political Science at WBU, joined Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin and others on Tuesday, November 19, in Little Rock for a press conference on the University of Oxford’s Quill Project.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Arkansas Constitution, and Harris, a scholar of the Arkansas Constitution and government, has participated in multiple events to commemorate the state constitution. The Quill Project will work to preserve historical documents related to the framing and ratification of the current Arkansas Constitution and previous state constitutions, making them more easily accessible for researchers and the public.
The project is a continuation of Harris’s work as a doctoral student. Harris’s doctoral dissertation, “Arkansas’s Divided Democracy: The Making of the Constitution of 1874,” is the only full-length study of the framing of the current Arkansas Constitution. Lawyers, lawmakers, and advocacy groups have relied on Harris and his knowledge of the Arkansas Constitution.
“The Quill Project will consolidate a large amount of information into a single site, allowing scholars, lawyers, judges, and the general public to understand better what the framers of the Arkansas Constitution intended,” Harris said.
The Quill Project is a joint effort between the Attorney General’s office and the University of Arkansas Library.
Harris and Griffin both spoke at the press conference. Other speakers included Dr. Charles F. Robinson, chancellor at the University of Arkansas; Dr. David Ware, former Arkansas Supreme Court chief justice and current professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law, state historian and director of the state archives; and Dr. Nicholas Cole, senior research fellow and director of the Quill Project at the University of Oxford, Pembroke College.
WBU is a private, Christian university in Walnut Ridge.
