Public education requirements for public universities are determined by state legislatures. There are numerous instances of this, but Utah SB 334 is without a doubt groundbreaking.
Gov. One of the “most significant costs of the 2025 congressional treatment,” Spencer Cox declared Monday in the signing of a law establishing the Center for Civic Excellence at Utah State University.
According to Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who helped develop the bill’s type legislation, the law fundamentally requires “every scholar at Utah State University to get a complete year-and-a-half course in Northern civilization and an extra one-semester course in British civics.”
In a statement released on Monday, Cox stated,” I’m thrilled Utah State University is taking the lead to captain a remodel of public knowledge through the new centre for education excellence.”
This school will be charged with creating a general education curriculum that emphasizes civil discourse, viewpoint diversity, and assisting students in developing analytical abilities to make contributions to the public square. This course will serve as a reference point for all of our public universities throughout Utah and throughout the nation.
According to The College Fix, the center is expected to develop a core curriculum that includes topics on world civilizations, economics, science, and U.S. history, government, and literature.
According to Kurtz, students will study subjects like those in “ancient Israel, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the spread of Christianity, medieval Europe, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the post-Enlightenment.” Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Shakespeare, and other exemplary texts are included in the list.
The center will create a general education that replaces the current “distribution model” with a” coherent curriculum” grounded in” civil and rigorous intellectual inquiry, across ideological differences, with a commitment to intellectual freedom in the pursuit of truth,” according to the law.
The bill places an emphasis on” civil discourse, critical thinking about enduring questions, wise decision-making, and durable skills,” while addressing “big questions, great debates, and enduring ideas” that are relevant to society, the American experience, and the modern world.
The legislation, SB 334, is scheduled to go into effect on May 7.
Kurtz previously covered some of the legislation’s specifics for National Review and called it a “game changer nationally.”
” I’ve argued that state legislatures have the authority to establish requirements for public universities ‘ general education.” Utah SB 334 “breaks new ground,” according to Kurtz, who has numerous precedents in this regard.
SB 334 not only describes and specifies classic general education courses, but it also assigns those courses to a distinct academic unit ( the Center for Civic Excellence ) with a strong emphasis on “great books” approach. The bill would extend this approach to all state public university students after a year or so of pilot study, he wrote.
Utah legislators benefited from a curriculum overhaul being implemented at Utah State University to get the bill passed this session, according to Kurtz. The bill did not pass on its first attempt.
Kurtz had previously stated in an interview with The College Fix that this new method of curriculum oversight will likely lead to the eventual dismissal of some professors.
According to Kurtz , “any university that adopts this bill needs to employ substantial new faculty with the kind of expertise and teaching philosophy that are appropriate for traditional general education.”
However, he said,” You are going to be in a financially untenable position once you hire a large number of new faculty members without dismissing an equivalent number of existing faculty members.”
Because students are required to enroll in the new core curriculum classes, enrollment in esoteric humanities courses will decline, he added.
MORE: The pro-Western curriculum bill initially falters. Its supporters aren’t giving up.
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