School of Civic Life and Leadership

This course provides an understanding of the big questions surrounding civic life and leadership. Part I uses classic texts of politics, philosophy, and literature to examine the role of the state in society and the tensions that exist between individual freedom and the powers of the state. Part II focuses on the American founding to understand the American experiment in democracy. Part III covers a set of controversies in modern civic life. Honors version available.

This course focuses on the ideas and practices necessary to analyze arguments and disagree in a productive and compassionate way, especially at a time of deep polarization in American culture. Students in this course will debate five, contentious, contemporary topics to practice researching multiple sides of an issue significant to civil society, engaging in oral and written argument, and developing criteria by which to evaluate argument, evidence, and debate performance.

This course explores the role of the sciences in a polity in general, and in American democracy specifically. The course introduces students to the scientific method, its history and philosophical foundations, and its limitations. It explores the role of scientific evidence in societal and political decision making based on historic and current examples.