Kimberly Begg, president of the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women, will discuss “The Conservative Mind & The Conservative Woman” at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 17 in Morledge Great Room of Rathburn Hall on the campus of Grove City College.
The lecture is part of The Conservative Mind series, hosted by The Institute for Faith and Freedom (IFF), the College’s conservative think tank. It is free and open to the public, but registration is required. To register visit faithandfreedom.com/the-conservative-mind.
Begg is an attorney with decades of experience strengthening conservative causes and the author of “Unbreakable: Saints Who Inspired Saints to Moral Courage” and co-author with Mike Ortner of “The Catholic School Playbook.” She serves on the board of directors of the Luce Center and Young America’s Foundation, as well as the board of overseers of the Dominican House of Studies.
Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of Political Science and IFF senior director and chief academic fellow, has known Begg for years through her work with the Young America’s Foundation. He said she stepped back from full-time work with the organization to raise her five children.
“She remains a young mom, with all her kids still in school. She has beautifully integrated motherhood with her service to the cause of conservatism,” Kengor said.
The Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women is a non-profit organization that prepares and promotes conservative women leaders. Since 1993, the center inspired thousands of young women through internships, national student summits, campus speakers, firearms training, and other specialized programs.
Kengor said Luce, the center’s namesake, was “one of the most remarkable women of the 20th century.”
“She was a writer, an actress, a diplomat, an ambassador, a congresswoman, a pundit, a foreign-policy analyst, and more – all at a time when women had not achieved some of those positions. She had a truly groundbreaking career,” he said, noting that Luce worked with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. “To learn more about Luce and the conservative woman, come to Kimberly’s talk. I promise that you will be enlightened and informed by this excellent speaker,” Kengor said.
The Conservative Mind lecture series is designed to advance a well-informed understanding of what modern conservatism, as advanced by the likes of Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Ronald Reagan, is. Kirk said that conservatism is less an ideology than it is an attitude. Conservatives believe in the “permanent things,” in an “enduring moral order” based on Biblical law and natural law. They believe in an “ordered liberty” anchored in both faith and freedom.
Each semester, the series invites a leading conservative thinker or scholar to explore the precise question of what it means to be a conservative. For more about The Conservative Mind and past lectures, visit faithandfreedom.com/the-conservative-mind.