You see my hand, raise your hand please if you can see my hand raise your hand. See my hand, raise your hand. There we go. That was my k through 12 persona. Terrific, we are going to get started for our afternoon session. We were founded by the Colonial Assembly in the colony of massachusetts, they passed authority to the State Government at the time of writing of the state constitution so harvard is in the massachusetts state constitution. People have come to think its a private university. Go figure how that transpired, but Public University. Pleasure to be here and we are here also as one of coauthors of the educating for american democracy road map for k through 12 education and really a lot of the colleagues, jim are here who worked on that, peter levine as well and maybe some others who participated in that project, checker finn who is currently working with us was here earlier and as i think about the issue of Civic Education in the university, for me it boils to something very simple. The road map released in 2021 was the product of about 300 educators and scholars from around the country working on it. A group of people who spanned viewpoints and subject matter expertise and professional experience and we linked arms we said theres an urgent threat to the nation, kids do not have sufficiently rich opportunities for civic learning, they need core knowledge, they need civic skills and they also need civic dispositions an virtues an together we develop a framework that really had many important compromises in it. A commitment, for example, to educate not for testimony democracy and not for republic but constitutional democracy. A compromise phrase bringing the best of the arguments for both terms to the floor all three words are in the road map, the constitutional and democracy really sits tat center and another compromise around an old but now also reborn idea reflect patriotism, love of country but to marry love of country with the capacity for reflection and thoughtful engagement. That was a really important compromise in the work that we did. Also another important compromise in the work of road map was the idea that as we understand who we are individually and in community and as members of our society the right framework for thinking about challenges around diversity and inclusion is a framework of pluralism where we care about peoples different identities and also diversed ideologies that we are as interested in experience and religion, military service in racial and ethnic background. Pluralism concept was a really important achievement, and so when i think about Civic Education in colleges and universities, my answer now, my dream list to wish of what would happen on College Campuses is simply that all of our colleges and universities would turn out people with degrees, equipped to teach to educate for american democracy road map in our k through 12 schools. If our colleges and universities could deliver that, it would actually address completely our Civic Education challenge. So that means if one is thinking about Higher Education and higher ed and what do grownups need to know in order to teach this for kids, so with that im just delight today moderate what is going to be exciting challenge, two doctors thomas. We have dr. George thomas who is a professor and also book on the founders and the idea of the National Universities, very exciting piece of work dr. Robert thompson, contemporary civilization, of course, and core curriculum has given a lot of thought to that and we are in for a treat and i will hand it over first the george. Before i start, i want to say its a pleasure to be here. Im delighted to think about education in the american context and its great jenna who organized this. So let me start by saying that we have already been saying oh so often, often recognized that education, what is largely forgotten that most of the leading founders propose National University to this and in america, i think, we also like to remind ourselves of the history that we often forget especially given that our history so s so bound up with american identities, actually start with noah webster that in 1708s prior even to the Constitutional Convention is beraiding his fellow americans that they dont know American History at all and so i want to go back and look at part of this history and i want to try to keep remarks and reminding myself and i forgot to stop timing myself, i want to keep my remarks under 15 minutes so we can save time, i think, for conversation and i want to make two essential points. And one really is a point about american constitutionalism and thats link between constitutionalism and education that we so underplay and i will get to that in just a moment and the second, what kind of Civic Education were they attempt to go create and turn back to understand the context of education at the time of the founding, right, and as professor allen who has pointed out. I cant tell you how often somebody from harvard would inevitable say dont we already have a National University but then slipped in so quickly so some could say, yeah, and start to say, this is really a private institution and we are making a private, so we could really to this. We could seize your endowment and use it for our own ends. [laughter] a third point and im going to say loaded right now, and because in part my talk is much about american constitutionalism about Civic Education, but i think what unites is James Madison, what unites them in some way against our comp temporary understanding is constitutional democracy, i like that framing of it is not neutral. Its neutral on certain issues at certain times but its not a neutral political regime and neither are public universities or Public Institutions or private institutions that are in some sense set out to support american constitutional democracy again they can be neutral on certain issues but not neutral overall. So let me start with the National University. We tend to take our Democratic Institutions for granted assuming that theyll be selfperpetuating. Not just public leadership in public Leadership Class but certain ideas that were essential for Democratic Institutions. They did not as so often said think that the constitution was a machine that would go of itself. Its also while we are reminding ourselves to have history we tend to forget, lull didnt mean it that way. Lull gave us to phrase to us in a speech in constitutional degeneration. He was reminding americans that they shouldnt take Democratic Institutions for granted precisely because they were not selfsustaining. And so he like the founding generation thought of education as a way to frame a mindset and culture that was crucial to carries forward the constitutional project and the constitutional imperfect experiment, part of what i highlight here is that we now take the constitution little document largely enforced by courts and lawyers and we are engaged in this process of legal interpretation. I think one of the key things is precisely the fact that in some sense, right, we have given the project of constitutional maintenance to lawyers and to judges rather than to citizens or to members of congress or the presidency and so they understood the constitutional more as an ongoing project. It was hardly just about legal interpretation but it included the ideas of citizens. Let me start, i think, looking back with the question that the founding again ration was thinking about in terms of why they wanted a National University. It is what unites us as people. Providence was please today give the country a United People descended from the same ancestors speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attach today the same government, jays sentiment reentered the public sphere as we can see resurgence of nationalism. The founders on the whole rejected and certainly those who framed or wanted the university rejected this understanding. Diverse and growing nation the shared mindset and understanding committees to certain political and think of it more in terms of civic culture than just legal institutions, youre padsing on the political principles and understanding the mindset. Let me give because it is unknown. Just a brief history. I wont go over all the thinkers who supported the idea of National University but just a brief history. It first comes up with Benjamin Rush. It comes up prior to the Constitutional Convention. Madison actually seconded by wilson made the motion at the Constitutional Convention but then it is picked up by every president until John Quincy Adams and comes up again in interesting ways right after the civil war for reasons we will not get into in just a moment and there the fight and this is where Charles Elliot of harvard returns they start to resist the president of the established University Start to resist and call for National University because they want to keep this for themselves but also gets debated for the last time in congress in 1914 or 15 but the important part of it is early america is precisely constitutional project that theyre trying to create Democratic Institution that is we take largely for granted. The real revolution is just begun, Benjamin Rush echoes this again in the months before a Constitutional Convention. And so their argument is that we need to bring out the idea and the principles of what they will call constitutional democracy in order to sustain this experiment in government, education is an absolutely essential part of this. Im going skip over all the calls. George washington, James Madison but it includes jeffersonians, most things can be left to the state but this is not one of them. It needed to be national and it need today be public and jefferson would, of course, and i can talk about this in the q a, everjon would have taken the ideas as part of founding the university of virginia with James Madison which is in some ways is where the National University is most important in terms of its influence, the curricula out of virginia and the reason for the university of virginia is largely on the arguments of a National University. So why a National University, to understand the second part of it. If i focus largely on the idea that you need the habits of mind of the people, right, not just legal ideas about a constitution to carry this constitutional project forward. Why werent the colleges and universities tat time largely colleges up to the task and just on this i know theres been talk about bens university of North Carolina but claim to be Public University in the nation and largely i think because it actually put forward in the 1776 North Carolina constitution. Doesnt actually come about until 1789. Until the university of georgia makes a similar claim, right, but its in the constitution. The short of it at the time were church State Colleges and varied to different levels. Harvard was deeply a church State College so was yale. Princeton where theres a weaker establishment much less of the university of pennsylvania actually stands out in interesting ways because it has no religious affiliation and is actually thinking of itself very much along the lines of an educational enterprise committed to the new order, a new constitutional democracy. So part of what i highlighted in the book but wont go into detail here about is Constitutional Orders, youre moving from the Colonial Church state organization which is no webster, was largely monarchacl and you had the break the theology and move to a secular basis. Let me be quick to add at this point, in the book i news noah webster 1828 definition of secular which just means it was not founded on theological authority. It creates a place for religious liberty there but doesnt formally or endorse it. Jefferson and madison werent safe but there will be religious liberty, kind of the shift in mind captured by the idea that what the proproponents of the National University want today capture was teaching Something Like religious liberty as the kind of constitutional knowledge. Thats a principle committed to your own religious belief and so let me just address this question, why do we care why does it matter. My vote would be to call them programs in constitutional studies. I know thats probably sort of not the winning vote for political reasons and that makes sense. Constitutional studies that includes all kinds of things that come about with constitutionalism like literature and philosophy and history of certain sort that is felt under that umbrella because when we reorganize knowledge those things come with it in important ways and we dont think of constitutionalism along those lines but thats part are thinking about constitutionalism should be much more capacious because part of it is the fact that we neglected constitutionalism in the civic realm is why we end up with so many people not understanding Constitutional Government and we are trusting lawyers to do the job and they dont always do the job well and its not only because they are problematic themselves but they are looking at them through a narrow realistic lens and that doesnt begin to canture the constitutional universe but trying to so i think a lot of these civic programs have something deeply familiar and for those reasons. How do you cultivate and how you cultivate in a critical way deep understandings about constitutional democracy. Think about constitutional institutions and driven more by career concerns and the market and thats also compounded by a kind of commitment to politics in a narrow and partisan often deeply left manner and that is education, mindset that you want to cultivate at the University Level by way of Civic Education. So i think that in some ways refounding the curriculum or rethinking about the curriculum can be hedge of selfinterested notion of we are teaching Critical Thinking and these are concerns and in this way, i want to put the emphasis on thinking on the past. The way to maybe make programs really work is to put history at the center and put the american regime as a Constitutional Order at the center of that and think of it in an investigative manner. So you put it up as a question, right, crucial to the american regime and then in doing so you also have to look back, right, whats the american regime created against and what are the other kind of political philosophy out there that we need to think about in order to understand the american regime as a constitutional regime and then we put the history as well because that puts both, the bad parts of history and the good parts of history, the conference that is we do often lead out as we talk about the american Constitutional Order without talking about all of its flaws like the fact that we brought a civil war, deeply profound constitutional failure in the middle of this and it was over ideas essentially and i dont think we think enough about that but thats my minor suggestion for what this kind of education might look like in our present time i will send there. Thank you very much. [applause] hello and thank you for having me. So one century and 15 minutes, buckle your seat belts and the automotive metaphor is appropriate because we will be betting into some curricular nuts and bolts here. First, how did this project come out, in 2019 colombia curriculum turned 100 years old. I wont talk about all 7 courses, rather, i will just focus on contemporary, the first 1919 course because was and still argued a civics course, anyway, in 2017 i was teaching then director roosevelt montage some of you may and we both saw theres enthusiasms in really getting in the history for the core celebration and but the course premise is that during crisis and birthdays those are times to reflect and reconstruct two terms from john, ccs godfather and he pitched Butler Library on an exhibit. I spent a year in the archives and here was two weeks before covid shut it down and then it was slowly disassembled over the next few months with nobody able to see it. So the library did put a few items here and put that link, this slide show and link with other useful files with video of my talk online. So, first, ccs origin and evolution. We will ask what the changes can teach us and if todays cc is still civics, unchanging problem that cc and courses have always phrased and im sure theyll be some questions about the protests going on out there right now. But id like to start with a quote looking back from 1932 edmon recalled the spirit. In 1914 he wrote sorry moor is on the campus and readed new republic and eagerly ex