MAJOR
Each of us wants to live for a purpose. But how do you decide what purpose is worthy of your ambition? Each of us wants to pursue goodness and justice. But how do we know what is good or just? Each of us longs for freedom. But how do you safeguard freedom for yourself and for others?
These questions matter. What’s at stake is the direction of our lives and our society. If you’re asking these questions, you’re in good company. History’s greatest thinkers and doers have asked these questions, too.
At the school of Civic Leadership, students will study with faculty members dedicated to the pursuit of truth and wisdom, as part of a community on a mission to find out what it means and what it takes to be free and to live well.
*While approval is pending for the proposed major in Civics Honors, students may apply to the School of Civic Leadership as undeclared majors. We anticipate that the Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Civics Honors will have final approval prior to the 2025-2026 academic year.
Read, write, think, speak, persuade. Strive for excellence. Become a Civics Honors major.
Your Civics Honors degree prepares you to respond to the important questions
| Pre-Health Professions Certificate |
Your Civics Honors degree prepares you to respond to the important questions
The Civics Honors major matches well these minor or certificate opportunities across campus
| Pre-Law Services
Core Texts and Ideas Minor or Certificate Law, Justice, and Society Minor Military Leadership Minor (ROTC) Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Minor
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Your Civics Honors degree prepares you to respond to the important questions
The Civics Honors major matches well these minor or certificate opportunities across campus
| Communicating Social Issues Minor
Communicating for Development and Philanthropy Minor Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Minor
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Your Civics Honors degree prepares you to respond to the important questions
What does it mean to want to success in business—for myself and for the benefit of others? What kinds of thinking enable me to recognize opportunities? How can I develop the courage to take risks? What is the relationship, and what are the tensions, between democracy and a free economy?The Civics Honors major matches well these minor or certificate opportunities across campus
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Your Civics Honors degree prepares you to respond to the important questions
What is war? What is peace? How can what I say and do shape outcomes? What is the origin and history of America’s influence in the world? Whose interests matter, and why?The Civics Honors major matches well these minor or certificate opportunities across campus
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Your Civics Honors degree prepares you to respond to the important questions
What kind of education do I need to lead in my community? How can what I learn shape who I am? What traditions have shaped American civic life? What does it mean for a person or for a community to succeed and to thrive?The Civics Honors major matches well these minor or certificate opportunities across campus Digital Humanities Certificate Core Texts and Ideas Minor or Certificate Law, Justice, and Society Minor Military Leadership Minor (ROTC) |
Your Civics Honors degree prepares you to respond to the important questions
The Civics Honors major matches well these minor or certificate opportunities across campus
| Programming and Computation Certificate |
UT Austin’s School of Civic Leadership prepares students for the challenge of sustaining the American political project. That project of self-government depends for its success on citizens who understand the principles and practices that enable free people to act with shared purpose for the good of their communities. The SCL prepares students for lives of significance and for successful careers in education, government, business, the arts, medicine, culture, law, diplomacy, the military, and other fields.
On August 1, 2024, the SCL began accepting applications for its inaugural cohort of pioneering students. Admission will be competitive.
Civics is the study of the rights and obligations of citizenship. As an academic discipline, civics blends a classical liberal education with the study of American history, law, economics, and political philosophy. By providing a strong foundation in the ideas and forces that continue to shape the American project, the study of civics prepares students to live well and to sustain American self-government.
When Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 what kind of government we would have, he famously replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The BA with a major in Civics Honors will prepare each cohort of students for that noble work. Political and civic life is about making decisions together with other people. Every political community must make choices not just about policy, but also about bigger questions, such as what it means to live well. As Americans, we have not only the freedom to govern ourselves, but also the responsibility of governing thoughtfully. We live in a free and divided society. As Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey argue, civics fosters knowledge and intellectual habits that enable students to deliberate with others on questions of common life as they relate to liberty, economics, technology, education, law, diplomacy and war, arts and culture, and the common good.
The American project is fragile. The effort to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness depends on citizens who can think and act for the common good. The SCL equips students to steward our shared institutions and to meet innovation with practical wisdom. Students develop the ability to engage enduring texts of the ancient world, modernity, and the American story. These texts—and the promise and challenge they convey—become resources for students as they prepare to take responsibility for their lives and their communities.
The Bachelor of Arts with a major in Civics Honors introduces students to the intellectual inheritance of Western Civilization and to the American constitutional tradition. From the first intellectual foundations through a capstone thesis and internship, students gain experience that informs a life of service.
Students take a sequence of Intellectual Foundations courses:
In dedicated Tools courses, students mature their capacity for understanding, rhetoric, inquiry, and textual analysis through:
In addition, students take at least two courses in each of the three major areas of coursework: Constitutionalism, Western Civilization, and Civic Leadership.
Constitutionalism courses introduce students to the history of rights, freedoms, and the rule of law. Central questions include: What are rights? Who bears them? What is law? What makes government legitimate? What do I owe to others? How have thinkers in the American tradition answered these questions? What’s the point of America’s complex set of governing institutions?
Course options include:
Western Civilization courses introduce students to the quest for wisdom about how to live well and how to achieve liberty and order in community. Important questions include: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be an individual or a member of a community? What’s a good life? What, if anything, is sacred? What is friendship? What deserves my love?
Course options include:
Civic Leadership courses give students practice resolving questions through ethical reflection, economic analysis, and thoughtful statecraft. Important questions include: How should I live and lead? How do I resolve ethical questions? What factors produce economic dynamism, and how are they measured? Which economic and political system best promotes human flourishing? How do nations relate to one another? What are the possible courses of action when those relationships break down?
Course options include:
All students complete a thesis, an internship, foreign language sequence, and electives. The thesis spans two semesters and it is the capstone of the Civics Honors experience.
When you earn a BA with a major in Civics Honors at UT Austin, you develop a sense of responsibility for our common life. You know that your actions matter, and you have tested resources that enable you to address the practical problems of modern life. You also gain valuable experience through your internship.
As an honors graduate, you’ll leave UT Austin with an education for liberty. You’ll have the skills for a professional career in the private sector, the non-profit sector, or public service. You’ll graduate with the ability to think, to read, to write, to speak, to deliberate, and to analyze and interpret data. Those skills are in demand. Your honors degree signals to future employers that you are among the best of the best at on one of the top universities in the world.
According to the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services’ white paper “The Business Case for Civics Education,” thriving corporations depend on the skills, knowledge, and deliberative disposition that students gain through the study of civics. Sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the white paper notes that “the benefits of a quality civics education, which gives young people the knowledge, skills, and disposition to be successful citizens, have never been more valued by employers.”
Every Civics Honors student completes an internship. Studies show that internships significantly boost success after graduation.
The School of Civic Leadership fosters in students aptitudes and skills that enable them to contribute to the intellectual life of the University. In addition, the school challenges students to develop the virtues of courage, justice, moderation, and wisdom as the hallmarks of their study.
Justice is the virtue that enables us to take responsibility and give to each person his due.
Moderation is the virtue that enables us to lead our lives with self-discipline.
Wisdom is the virtue that enables us to deliberate about what to do based on knowledge of what is true.
When you graduate with a BA with a major in Civics Honors, you’ll graduate with a sense of agency – the knowledge that your actions matter and the desire to fulfill your potential. You’ll have the courage to think for yourself. And you’ll possess the tools of competent communication and deliberation.
You can expect faculty members who:
As of August 1, 2024, the SCL is accepting applications for its inaugural cohort. While approval is pending for the proposed major in Civics Honors, students may apply to the School of Civic Leadership as undeclared majors. We anticipate that the Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in Civics Honors will have final approval prior to the 2025-2026 academic year. Students who apply in fall 2024 to SCL as undeclared majors and receive acceptance will be able to transfer into the SCL’s BA with a major in Civics Honors once it has received final approval.
We regularly offer in-person and online info sessions for prospective students. Sign up here. To learn more, contact Sarah Beth V. Kitch, director of academic programs, at sb.kitch@utexas.edu.
