Prof. Alison LaCroix has been named the speaker for the University of Chicago’s Convocation on June 6, as part of the campus-wide celebration of the Class of 2026.
A renowned scholar of U.S. legal history specializing in constitutional law, federalism, and 18th- and 19th-century legal thought, LaCroix is the Robert Newton Reid Professor of Law at the Law School. She is also an associate member of the Department of History and has been a member of the UChicago faculty since 2006.
“I’m tremendously honored to address the Class of 2026 at this year’s Convocation,” LaCroix said. “Gathering the University community to celebrate our graduates’ accomplishments and to send them forth on their next endeavors gives us a wonderful opportunity to reflect on how integral the life of the mind is to the values of American democracy.”
LaCroix is the author of The Ideological Origins of American Federalism (2010) and The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms (2024). The Interbellum Constitution, which examines a transformative yet overlooked period in U.S. history between the War of 1812 and the Civil War (1815 to 1861), was awarded two major book prizes: the Littleton-Griswold Prize from the American Historical Association and the SHEAR Book Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic.
LaCroix is a member of the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of American Constitutional History and the American Journal of Legal History and has served as a member of the board of directors of the American Society for Legal History.
In 2021, President Joe Biden appointed her to a bipartisan commission to examine possible reform to the U.S. Supreme Court. She was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 2018.
Information about Convocation weekend
The 540th campus-wide Convocation celebration—the annual “calling together” of the UChicago community—will begin at 9:15 a.m. June 6 on the Main Quadrangles. Convocation weekend begins on June 5 with the College’s Class Day ceremony, which will honor graduating students and will include an address by Tony Award-winning playwright David Auburn, AB’91.
Ceremonies for the College and UChicago’s schools and divisions will take place from June 4-7. For more information and event schedules, visit the Convocation website.
