Civic Life and Leadership Minor
SCiLL’s minor offers engaging courses that explore the foundational questions, texts, and traditions that have shaped American democracy and Western thought. Through this interdisciplinary program, students will gain the knowledge and skills to lead with wisdom, have reasoned conversations across differences, and live with purpose in our pluralistic democracy.
They will learn civil discourse as they tackle civic life’s perennial questions: What constitutes the good life? What are the best political and economic systems? How should scientific knowledge guide politics? What founding principles should the United States preserve or revise? By grappling with questions both timely and timeless, students develop the capacities for deliberation and judgment essential to effective civic leadership.
Requirements
In addition to the program requirements listed below, students must:
- take at least nine hours of their minor "core" requirements at UNC–Chapel Hill
- earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.000 in the minor core requirements. Some programs may require higher standards for minor or specific courses.
For more information, please consult the degree requirements section of the catalog.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Core Requirements | ||
| SCLL 102 |  Pursuing The Good Life | 3 |
| SCLL 103 | Seeking the Just Society | 3 |
| Select one elective course from each of the three categories listed below (three courses total). | 9 | |
| Total Hours | 15 | |
Civic Discourse and Leadership Category
The Civic Discourse and Leadership (CD) category is an opportunity for students to learn how to disagree fruitfully across difference. Courses in this category will expose students to controversial questions and debates. These courses will encourage productive approaches to disagreement that a pluralistic society depends on. CD courses will do more than simply teach skills in disagreeing well. CD courses will also deeply engage with the the facts, context, and nuance surrounding the topics they cover, requiring students to achieve a rigorous understanding of the topic or theme in question.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| SCLL 85 | First-Year Seminar: What Does it Mean to be a Good Citizen? | 3 |
| SCLL 110 | Reasoning Together: Civic Dialogue in Polarized Times | 3 |
| SCLL 170 | Left, Right, and Center | 3 |
| SCLL 185 | How to be a Citizen | 3 |
| SCLL 201 | Practice of Civic Life and Leadership F | 3 |
| SCLL 240 | Free Speech and Its Limits: From Socrates to Cancel Culture | 3 |
| SCLL 270 | Speech and Power in Political Life | 3 |
| SCLL 352 | Labcoats and Legislators: Navigating Science and Policy in a Democratic Society | 3 |
| F | FY-Launch class sections may be available. A FY-Launch section fulfills the same requirements as a standard section of that course, but also fulfills the FY-SEMINAR/FY-LAUNCH First-Year Foundations requirement. Students can search for FY-Launch sections in ConnectCarolina using the FY-LAUNCH attribute. |
- 1
With permission, based on topic.
Fundamental Questions and Ideas
The Fundamental Questions and Ideas (FQ) category invites students to examine the fundamental questions of human life and political society through the reading of Western philosophical, political, literary, and religious texts and their interlocutors that speak to these questions. Courses satisfying the FQ category will encourage deep reading to address foundational human experiences like justice, happiness, love, marriage, education, family, crime, punishment, faith, and death, as well as questions about how to structure civic life to facilitate human flourishing. FQ courses are designed to help students to live reflective and flourishing lives.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| SCLL 104 | Classics of Civic Thought | 3 |
| SCLL 125 | Utopias and Dystopias: Civic Possibilities | 3 |
| SCLL 132 | Education and Civic Ideals | 3 |
| SCLL 136 | Love and Death | 3 |
| SCLL 140 | Islam, Outsiders, and Civic Life | 3 |
| SCLL 148 | Encounters: Travel and Civic Life | 3 |
| SCLL 204 | Why Read? The Theory and Practice of Reading | 3 |
| SCLL 215 | The Politics of Comedy and Tragedy | 3 |
| SCLL 218 | Vocation: Finding Purpose in Life and Work | 3 |
| SCLL 232 | Lawbreakers: Crime, Punishment, and Modernity | 3 |
| SCLL 235 | Heroes and Leaders | 3 |
| SCLL 242 | Christian Ethics and Moral Controversies | 3 |
| SCLL 245 | The Family in the Civic Order (renumbered from SCLL 145) | 3 |
| SCLL 252 | The Communist Challenge: Ideals, Failures, and Lessons | 3 |
| SCLL 255 | Thought and Action in the Ancient Polis | 3 |
| SCLL 280 | Rome and the Republican Imagination | 3 |
| SCLL 304 | Thomas Aquinas: Faith and Reason | 3 |
| SCLL 318 | The Republic of Ideas: The Enlightenment in Civic Perspective | 3 |
| SCLL 320 | Liberalism and its Critics | 3 |
| SCLL 340 | The Crescent and the Cross: Islamic and Christian Thought | 3 |
| SCLL 350 | Humans to Machines: Science, Technology, and Social Order | 3 |
| SCLL 425 | Natural Law and Human Rights | 3 |
| SCLL 429 | Political Theology | 3 |
- 1
With permission, based on topic.
American Civic Life Category
The American Civic Life (ACL) category is an opportunity for students to critically examine the nature, structure, and foundations of American democracy. Courses satisfying the ACL category may focus on American political development, the American intellectual tradition, the sources of American civic thought, or comparisons of American civic life with some of its alternatives, historical or contemporary. These courses will offer students the opportunity to understand the American civic regime and offer tools for critically analyzing it. ACL courses prepare students to be full and responsible participants in American civic life.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| SCLL 150 | Foundations of American Civic Life H | 3 |
| SCLL 160 | American Political Economy | 3 |
| SCLL 165 | The American Character | 3 |
| SCLL 175 | American Leadership: Statesmen, Politicians, and Demagogues | 3 |
| SCLL 180 | Tocqueville's America: Sustaining Democracy | 3 |
| SCLL 207 | The Global Cold War | 3 |
| SCLL 222 | Universities and Democracy: Purpose and Practice | 3 |
| SCLL 244 | Declaration of Independence and Civic Foundations (renumbered from SCLL 155) | 3 |
| SCLL 250 | Democracy: Ancient and Modern | 3 |
| SCLL 315 | America Through Foreign Eyes | 3 |
| SCLL 430 | Representation and Democracy | 3 |
| SCLL 500 | Grand Strategy | 3 |
| SCLL/HIST 510 | Human Rights in the Modern World H | 3 |
| H | Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply. |
