The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosts "Beyond the Ivory Tower: What Elite and Non-Selective Colleges Can Teach Each Other About Civics" with Thomas Schnaubelt, J. Cherie Strachan, Scott Arcenas, and Josiah Ober on Janruary 14, 2026, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT.
As higher education experiences a renewal of interest in civic education, much of the attention and resources have focused on elite universities. Yet non-selective institutions have a long history of producing civically minded students and often maintain deep engagement with the communities in which they are embedded. This webinar explores the comparative advantages and challenges of elite and non-selective institutions in preparing students for effective citizenship, what each can learn from the other, and practical pathways for collaboration that draw on their respective strengths.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Thomas (Tom) Schnaubelt, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Tom came to Stanford in 2009 and served as an Associate Vice Provost for Education and Executive Director of the Haas Center for Public Service for 13 years while also serving as a resident fellow in Branner Hall, Stanford’s public service and civic engagement theme dorm. Prior to Stanford, Tom served as Dean for Community Engagement & Civic Learning at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, launched and directed Wisconsin Campus Compact, and led several national service and service-learning programs in Mississippi. He earned a PhD from the University of Mississippi, MA from the University of Michigan, and a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
Scott Lawin Arcenas is a historian and classicist who specializes in the history of democracy and political violence. His first book, Political Violence in Ancient Greece: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Stasis, 500-301 BCE (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press) examines the nature, frequency, and intensity of political violence in fifth- and fourth-century Greek city-states. It also introduces new methods and tools to overcome three of the most significant obstacles that confront attempts to study Greek history on a panhellenic scale: the scarcity, ambiguity, and deep biases of the evidentiary record. In recent years, Professor Arcenas has published articles on travel and transportation in the ancient world, digital history, Roman numismatics, Thucydides, and digital pedagogy. At the moment, he is working on three research projects: an introduction to Athenian democracy for The Basics (Routledge), a monograph on epistemic uncertainty in narrative histories of Greek city-states, and a series of articles on the relationship between political violence and the Greek economy.
At the University of Montana, Professor Arcenas teaches courses on Greek history, Roman history, Latin, Greek, the history of democracy, and citizenship in both the ancient and the modern world. He is a passionate advocate of civic education and General Education curricula--both at the University of Montana and elsewhere. Before arriving at UM, he taught at Stanford University, Dartmouth College, and George Mason University.
J. Cherie Strachan is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. Her political science research combines interests in political participation, voluntary civic and political organizations, and political communication. Recent work explores the #MeToo movement and women’s political ambition, as well as the effects of partisan polarization, rudeness, and civility on political engagement. Her applied civic engagement pedagogy research focuses on facilitating student-led deliberative discussions sessions and on enhancing the political socialization that occurs within campus student organizations. Strachan is also co-author of the textbook Why Don’t Women Rule the World? and co-editor of the APSA-published resource Strategies for Navigating Graduate School and Beyond.
Moderator
Josiah Ober is the Constantine Mitsotakis Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, and Founding Director of the Stanford Civics Initiative. His primary university appointment is in Political Science; he holds a secondary appointment in Classics and a courtesy appointment in Philosophy. His most recent books are Demopolis: Democracy before liberalism (2017), The Greeks and the Rational: The discovery of practical reason (2022), and The Civic Bargain: How democracy survives (2023, with Brook Manville).
