Civic Learning on Campus: Bringing Political Science In Mini-Conference II: Elephants in the Room: Civic Education Mandated by Red-State Legislatures

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Part of Mini-Conference

• Civic Learning on Campus: Bringing Political Science In Mini-Conference II

Session Description

In the last few years, red-state legislatures have launched the most ambitious projects in university-level civic education that our country has seen in decades. The model for this mode of reform is Arizona State University’s School of Civic Thought and Leadership, founded in 2017 through the efforts of Governor Doug Ducey and the Arizona state legislature, and developed under the directorship of political philosophy professor Paul Carrese. Since 2021, similar schools have been mandated in public universities in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, Utah, and Ohio, with more likely to come. Together these schools constitute a significant innovation in higher education that needs to be more broadly understood. This panel brings together several directors of these new projects to engage with each other and audience members, with the goal of bringing about a greater understanding of the aims of these new schools in the political science community.

I will pose questions such as the following: Is it legitimate for state legislatures to establish new academic units at public universities? What are the appropriate boundaries of political influence on public universities? What do state politicians see as the perceived need for such schools? What do the academic leaders of these programs see as the need for new schools? What constitutes an appropriately university-level civic education? How do the academic leaders see the relation of the programs of teaching and research that they will support to the political impetus that launched them? How will these new schools engage with existing schools and disciplines on campus? What is the long-term ambition for these schools?

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Chair

• Jenna Silber Storey American Enterprise Institute

Presenters

• Lee John Strang The Ohio State University

• Paul O. Carrese Arizona State University

• Joshua M. Dunn University of Tennessee