CIVICS HONORS

B.A. with a Major in Civics Honors

For students who want to make a difference, the question is:  “What do leaders need to know?”  Civics Honors students study Constitutionalism, Western Civilization, and Civic Leadership.   The major provides a coherent education in the philosophical, historical, and institutional foundations of ordered liberty. 

Courses in Constitutionalism offer sustained engagement with the ideas, debates, and structures of American constitutional government. Students read deeply in: 

• the political thought of the Founding
• the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist writings
• the great crises of the Civil War and Reconstruction
• the major political speeches and Supreme Court decisions that have shaped our national tradition

Rather than treating the Constitution as a static document or merely a site of cultural conflict, students approach it as a politico-philosophic achievement and as a framework for responsible self-government under law.  

Courses in Western Civilization situate this achievement in its deeper civilizational context. Courses explore: 

• the moral and political thought of ancient Greece and Rome
• the contributions of the Hebrew Bible and Christian theology
• the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and Reformation
• the challenges of modernity

Students engage thinkers such as Plato, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, Locke, Rousseau, Marx, and Tocqueville not as an antiquarian study but as interlocutors, reviving an older tradition of learning in which the great books form the core of one’s intellectual formation. 

Courses in Civic Leadership integrate classical rhetoric, statesmanship, and public affairs with serious training in economics, data analysis, and markets in order to equip students with the needed tools for participating in a self-governing republic. Students learn to read texts as well as trends to combine political judgment with empirical insight. This area ensures that students develop the skills to become thoughtful, effective leaders in public life, civil society, and the professions. 

The program culminates in a senior thesis and an internship, and students benefit throughout from intensive faculty advising, small seminars, and co-curricular opportunities in debate, public speaking, and public service.