The University of Missouri has announced a $25 million gift from the Kinder Foundation to increase faculty and educational opportunities at the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy.

The institute, which was endowed by the foundation with a $25 million gift in 2015, is devoted to the study of the founding of the United States. The most recent gift will boost faculty and program offerings, including a summer Washington, D.C., internship and a study abroad program at Oxford University in England. The gift also will expand educational opportunities for students through a new partnership with UM’s Honors College that will enable the institute to offer a core sequence in constitutional democracy, as well as a one-month study-abroad option.

The most recent gift brings total giving from the foundation to the institute to $60 million, including a $10 million gift in 2019, which enabled it to offer two new degrees.

“In less than a decade, the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy has grown from an idea to an institute with study offerings in Oxford and Washington D.C., and now we are adding an honors study program,” said Kinder Foundation chair Rich Kinder, who signed the Giving Pledge in 2011 along with his wife, Nancy. “Jay Sexton, the director, and his team are doing a very good job growing the institute, which we believe is doing an excellent job of educating its students on the founding of our nation and the constitutional democracy which resulted.”

(Photo credit: courtesy of the University of Missouri)