The Founders Campaign is named for both the founders of Hillsdale College in 1844 and the Founders of our nation. Both understood deeply the connection between freedom and liberal arts education that is at the heart of Hillsdale's charter document - the idea that such education is only possible in a country with civil and religious liberty; at the same time such education is essential to maintaining that liberty.

Here is Edmund Fairfield, Hillsdale's second president, speaking on July 4, 1853:

Educational institutions are not only valuable in preparing for the enjoyment of rational liberty, but they are equally so in perpetuating it; they are the constant allies and the eternal bulwarks of all the institutions of republicanism.

And here is James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, writing in 1822:

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of liberty and learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

The Hillsdale College motto today is "Pursuing Truth and Defending Liberty since 1844." Through the Founders Campaign, we seek to secure the College's future of educating young people in the liberal arts and to expand our influence in promoting and reviving the principles of American constitutionalism nationwide.

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