Dr. Robin C. Henry will deliver the East Central University’s annual Rothbaum Lecture at 6 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 15, to commemorate Constitution Day. The title of her address is “‘What’s the Matter?’ to ‘What’s Happening?’ in Kansas: The Centrality of the Midwest and Great Plains to Development of Constitutional Rights in the United States.”

°”ÍűTV’s Rothbaum Lecture is traditionally delivered on Constitution Day, Sept. 17, 1789, when the final draft of the U.S. Constitution was signed by members of the Constitutional Convention. This year, the lecture will take place on Sept. 15, in the Stanley P. Wagner Ballroom, located inside the Memorial Student Union. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Henry earned her PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington. Currently, she is associate professor in the Department of History, and the interim chair of the Department of Women’s Ethnicity & Intersectional Studies at Wichita State University. Henry’s research focuses on the intersections between gender, sexuality, law and constitutional rights in the late 19th and 20th centuries, with publications appearing in journals, anthologies and edited collections. She is the author of an upcoming book, “Criminalizing Sex, Defining Sexuality: Sexual Regulation and Masculinity in the American West, 1850-1927.”

Henry is the host of the six-episode podcast “Hindsight: Looking Back at 1—Years of Women’s Suffrage” and is a contributing commenter to the radio series, “Past and Present” at Wichita’s public radio station KMUW.

 Her current projects include a biography of the Progressive-era juvenile judge and reformer Benjamin Barr Lindsey; an LGBTQ+ legal history primary-source reader; and an examination of civil rights and legal dormancy.

The Rothbaum Lecture is funded by an endowment established by the late Julian Rothbaum with a $25,000 gift to the °”ÍűTV Foundation, which was matched by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Rothbaum also established an endowment to fund the George Nigh Award for °”ÍűTV’s top graduating senior.

A native of Tulsa, Rothbaum was a longtime leader in Oklahoma civic affairs, a 1986 inductee into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, and a member of the Oklahoma State Regents for High Education and the University of Oklahoma Regents. He passed away in 2003.

For more information on the Rothbaum Lecture, please contact Dr. Scott Barton, °”ÍűTV History professor, at sbarton@ecok.edu or 580-559-5563.