About Us

School of Civic Leadership

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Overview

Every new generation needs an education for freedom.

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Texas Civic Leadership is an interdisciplinary community of scholars and students on a mission to find out what it means and what it takes to be free.

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Mission

Texas Civic Leadership Prepares a Rising Generation to Lead

Liberty depends on citizens who understand the ideas and institutions that make free, prosperous societies possible. Texas Civic Leadership educates students for freedom. Building on the University’s tradition of civic education, our students draw on the wisdom of the past to meet the challenges of the present.
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Vision & Principles

Secure the
Blessings of Liberty

At Texas Civic Leadership, the study of constitutional self-government is the cornerstone of a broader liberal education—one that prepares students to live freely by cultivating reasoned judgment, civic responsibility, and the capacity to improve the world around them.

Inspired by the University Tower inscription, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," Texas Civic Leadership challenges students to pursue truth through open inquiry, reasoned debate, and civil discussion. Students develop the virtues of courage, justice, moderation, and wisdom while engaging with diverse perspectives in an environment that safeguards freedom of thought and speech. Together, these principles equip graduates to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their communities.

Timeline

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Forum

Forum captures the intellectual life of Texas Civic Leadership through its people, ideas, and events, featuring interviews, event highlights, reflections on civic education, faculty contributions, and previews of upcoming scholarship and academic initiatives.

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FAQs

Your Questions Answered

What majors does SCL offer?

SCL offers two majors: Civics Honors and Great Books Honors.

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What does Honors mean in SCL?

The honors curriculum in SCL challenges students to cultivate, and then demonstrate, an exceptional level of academic maturity. All SCL academic majors challenge students to intensive reading, writing, and speaking.

The skills students need to lead well are difficult to acquire. SCL faculty, tutors, and mentors guide students in their quest to cultivate habits of careful reading, thoughtful writing, and compelling rhetoric.

SCL offers two honors majors, Civics Honors and Great Books Honors. In Civics Honors, all students complete a thesis and an internship. In Great Books Honors, all students participate in a focused small-group course sequence dedicated to reason, rhetoric, and virtue, then choose from a thesis, capstone, or internship.

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What is the starting point for civic education in SCL?

The School of Civic Leadership offers a pre-partisan education that prepares students for success across career paths. Before citizens can deal competently with the issues of the day, they need an education that enables them to wrestle with—and draw on the wisdom of—the traditions that inform American life.  Spirited, thoughtful, and open to critical self-reflection, this pre-partisan education introduces students to moral and intellectual resources that can orient their own lives.

What kind of student thrives in SCL?

SCL might be your intellectual home if you want a serious intellectual challenge, you’re eager to do something good in the world, and you’re excited to make friends.

The SCL intellectual challenge centers on intensive reading, writing, speaking, and deliberation.  SCL faculty, tutors, and mentors guide students in developing these key leadership skills.

The SCL academic program starts with the big questions: what does it mean to live well? What is justice? How do American constitutional principles enable citizens to think differently and yet live together? SCL majors explore these questions through essential texts of the western intellectual tradition and American constitutional experiment. You’ll thrive in SCL if you want to thoughtfully engage these questions and texts.

Texas Civic Leadership is a fit for students who want to ask big questions and cultivate deep skills to prepare for a life of service across a range of careers.

What kinds of careers would I train for in SCL?

SCL offers a classical and professional education to prepare students for business and entrepreneurship, science and technology, education and law, or public service and diplomacy. Civic leadership starts here.

Can I transfer in?

SCL accepts internal and external transfers.

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What kinds of courses can I take?

In the School of Civic Leadership, courses focus on big questions, essential texts, and skills for analysis.

Visit the SCL Course Catalog

What kinds of internships can I do?

SCL supports students in their effort to match with purposeful internships.

Learn more here

Can I study abroad?

Texas Civic Leadership students have access to study abroad opportunities available to all University of Texas students as well as programs designed specifically for SCL majors.

Explore study abroad

Can I double major or add a certificate?

This depends. Your best bet is to talk with SCL Advising, as they help students achieve their academic goals and begin to define their career paths.

Connect With SCL Advising
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