You are cordially invited to the inaugural dinner series
In Great Company: An evening with the Founding Fathers
Tuesday, September 22, 2026 at 6:30 p.m.
You are invited to the inaugural dinner series, In Great Company: An Evening with the Founding Fathers on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. at the George W. Bush Presidential Center.
The evening will feature a private dinner with an in-depth discussion and Q&A with host Shilo Brooks, President and CEO of the Bush Center and Professor of Practice in the Department of Political Science at SMU.
Dinner guests will have the unique opportunity to experience American history through the words and signatures of those who lived it. Among the artifacts featured are original handwritten documents from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and James Madison, alongside a rare edition of The Federalist Papers. These rare historic documents will offer an intimate glimpse into the people and moments that shaped our nation’s history.
About the speaker:
Shilo Brooks is President and CEO of the George W. Bush Presidential Center and Professor of Practice in the Department of Political Science at SMU. He was previously Executive Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, where he taught in the Department of Politics. Brooks is host of The Free Press’ Old School podcast and author of a forthcoming book from Penguin Random House. He has also published scholarly work in political theory and the humanities.
Winner of Princeton University’s Phi Beta Kappa teaching award, Brooks is a distinguished lecturer on topics ranging from statesmanship and civic leadership to American political thought, the history of political philosophy, liberal education, and the ethics of science and technology. He has also taught at the University of Colorado, where he designed and directed the Engineering Leadership Program to explore the ramifications of technology on democratic society, and was Associate Faculty Director of the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization, where he taught original works of the world’s greatest writers and thinkers. Dr. Brooks has also held academic appointments in the Department of Government at Bowdoin College and the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia.