The Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government is pleased to congratulate Helena Drake, Pre-Doctoral Research Associate, and Lauren Douglas, Office Coordinator, on their acceptance to graduate programs.
Helena Drake grew up in South Bend and came to the Center following her graduation from Princeton University in May 2025, where she earned a B.A. in Comparative Literature, specializing in French and Russian, with minors in Medieval Studies and Slavic Languages and Cultures. In her role at the Center, she has developed a deep interest in the relationship between literature and politics: how political systems shape literary expression and how literature in turn shapes political life.
At the CCCG, Drake has led a student colloquium titled "The Role of American Society and the Place of Fiction," which explores literature's role in both moral formation and the political sphere. The colloquium raised questions about "the purpose of fiction and the role of fiction when thinking about politics, " how stories form the individual moral person, and how they contribute to the broader political sphere. Drawing on readings from Shakespeare, Plato, John Steinbeck, and Flannery O'Connor, among others, the colloquium asks what fiction has done for American society in the past and what it can do in the future, treating literature as, in Drake's words, "the conscience of the nation at a certain moment."
Drake has valued both the intellectual environment of the Center and the practical support it offers. With mentorship from Professor Muñoz and support in the graduate school application process, she notes that the CCCG creates an environment where people can ask questions and "come away with clarified ideas." She will pursue a Master's degree at Oxford in medieval studies and French before beginning a Ph.D. in the Department of French and Italian at Princeton in the fall of 2027.
Her advice to undergraduates reflects her own formation: she encourages students to read, difficult as that can be in an age of phones, because books "add so much to your life when you're able to engage with different ideas through literature." And, she notes, you "can always do" it; you "don't need to be in a class."
Lauren Douglas '25 graduated from Notre Dame with a B.A. in Theology and the Program of Liberal Studies (PLS), and joined the CCCG in early July as Office Coordinator. She was drawn to Notre Dame in part by its Catholic mission of educating the whole person, to "explore faith life in a different key, not just devotional, but historical and theoretical." She found an intellectual community in PLS and Theology, which provided the academic rigor she was looking for. As a student, she worked with the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and served on the board of Notre Dame Right to Life.
In her role at the CCCG, Douglas works closely with Assistant Director Anna Bradley on planning and operations for the center's programming. One of her first major responsibilities was helping to execute the Jeannie Poole O'Shaughnessy Memorial Lecture with Justice Amy Coney Barrett: a large-scale event that required significant logistical coordination and security. She also helped organize a conference in January for early tenure-track faculty from universities and civic centers across the country, focused on how to teach civic education effectively. Douglas had the opportunity to sit in on sessions and hear faculty discuss their syllabi firsthand, an experience she found both professionally enriching and genuinely interesting.
Douglas describes her role as deeply rewarding when she knows she has "worked really hard" on an event and then is able to watch it "come to life." For Douglas, it was especially rewarding to plan and host events where undergraduate students engage with featured speakers.
This fall, Douglas will begin a Ph.D. in English at Duke University, where she plans to focus on the religious poetry of the early modern period (1500–1800). Her undergraduate formation in theology, particularly her study of biblical inheritance, has become a formative thread she hopes to carry into her literary scholarship, and to integrate it into her broader field of English. She is eager to teach, motivated by a sense of gratitude toward those who have formed her. "Feeling grateful and indebted to people who have formed me," she said that she hopes to "give back to help other people in the same way I've been helped."
Her advice to undergraduates is to go to office hours. Professors are, she says, "such lovely people to talk to," and offer so much to "learn personally, professionally, and academically." More broadly, she hopes students leave Notre Dame having been "formed for difficult times by a strong sense of challenge and doing hard things" — a lesson her own time at Notre Dame instilled in her.
“One of the joys of being on a small team is that each personality makes a significant impact on the being and acting of the CCCG,” Bradley observed. “Lauren and Helena both add such vibrancy to the culture here. Working closely with them on various projects over the last year has been a real gift, and while their unique talents and contributions will be missed, we’re thrilled for them to pursue their vocations in the academy.”
Stay up to date with all of the CCCG’s offerings this coming year by subscribing to our email list.