The School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas is accepting applicants for its inaugural fall 2025 class.
With 10 new faculty members hired and a minor launched this fall in philosophy, politics and economics, the school is aiming to recruit 50 to 100 students for its inaugural class which will have the opportunity to pursue a major in civics honors. A civics minor will launch next fall.
“Civics is the picture definition of the study of the rights and duty of citizenship,” said Justin Dyer, the school’s founding dean. “We have the idea of a program that introduces students to the broad sweep of Western civilization, American constitutionalism, but also equips them with the kind of skills and opportunities that they’ll need as leaders in our society.”
The new school, established by the UT System in May 2023, houses the research-focused Civitas Institute, which was created through legislative action in 2021. State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, had initially filed a bill last legislative session to turn the institute into a school, but the UT System board’s action preceded any vote.
Civics-focused schools and initiatives — largely focused on free speech, intellectual diversity, civic responsibility and American history — have recently become more common as a dissent against more progressive colleges.
Some faculty members and students initially criticized the institute as a conservative project after The Texas Tribune’s reporting revealed conservative political influences pushing the institute’s initial creation. Dyer, who was previously the founding director of the institute, said the school is neither partisan nor conservative, but it does study concepts that will likely be “attractive” to conservative people.
Scott Carrell, the associate dean for faculty affairs at the new school who has a joint appointment in economics, agreed with Dyer and described the school as “pre-partisan,” equipping students with civic knowledge and an interdisciplinary knowledge of the country’s founding.
“Folks will say (it’s) a conservative silo, but … it’s not about partisan politics at all. It’s about discussion of ideas and importantly we want to be integrated with the rest of campus,” he said.
Carrell, who pursued his graduate and doctorate degrees while serving 10 years in the U.S. Air Force, describes his path to higher education as atypical. He worked at the University of California Davis studying college persistence and access for disadvantaged students, and decided to come to the School of Civic Leadership particularly because of the school’s focus on civil discourse.
“There was an assumption in the military that most people believe you thought one way. And then I spent 16 years at University of California Davis, and there was pretty much an assumption that everybody there thought a different way,” Carrell said. “What the result was was very little discussion about issues.”
The new school’s model, he said, can demonstrate how to have constructive conversations about contentious issues.
Carrell also pointed to the interdisciplinary nature of the school, which will have politics, philosophy, economics, history and law. The curriculum will focus on Western civilization, the founding of the United States, and tools for civic leadership in politics, entrepreneurship and business, he said.
Students will do an honors thesis as well as internships, and have access to small class sizes and community within UT.
“It’s an exceptional major for that well-rounded student who’s interested in multiple topics,” Carrell said. “This would have been a great major for me.”
In an interview with the American-Statesman, UT President Jay Hartzell praised the interdisciplinary nature of the new school. He also pointed to the new Bachelor of Public Affairs program at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs that also will launch next fall, which he said will in some ways complement the civic leadership major.
“In many ways, these are both programs designed toward civic-minded future leaders, and they have different bends and different perspectives and content, but if you think about you want to go out and have a role as a civic-minded leader, we’ll have a couple of new ways to try to accomplish that,” Hartzell said. “The Civic Leadership School in particular will harken back to some of the foundational ideas, principles, issues that generated the leaders of the country, and we think are still relevant today.”
Ryan Streeter, executive director of the Civitas Institute, said students will be able to volunteer and attend the institute’s events. Since its launch two years ago, the institute has published papers, recruited fellows and created connections with many UT and national professors, he said.
Streeter said he hopes the institute will create accessible ways to translate its research, such as podcasts and explainers, to have an effect in politics and in culture, and become a household name.
“There’s been a really kind of spirit of just cooperation and collaboration,” Streeter said. “The outreach we’ve had from faculty around the country about being interested in what we’re doing … is a really good sign that this is actually needed on a university campus right now.”
Dyer said the school is continuing to recruit faculty members and has received a positive reception. He hopes the institute, supported by entrepreneurial and determined founding faculty and students, grows to serve many future generations at UT.
“Part of the original mission of public higher education was educating citizenship. We think that is an important aspect of a university education for all students from wherever they come from,” Dyer said. “Our ability to do that in a unique and compelling way for a small group of honors majors, but also for students across the university through our minor, is a value added to the campus community.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: UT School of Civic Leadership accepting applications for fall 2025
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