As a community of practice, the Alliance is committed to strengthening postsecondary civic education by fostering collaboration among members to develop and share ideas, resources, and best practices in a spirit of civic friendship. This work necessarily involves engaging with diverse perspectives, including those with which members may disagree. By doing so, we aim to model the democratic skills of good-faith dialogue and respectful engagement across differences—skills we seek to instill in our students, both in and beyond the classroom.
Below, you will find materials and ideas contributed by various Alliance members. These materials reflect a wide range of viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the view of the Alliance itself. However, we hope they will inspire thoughtful reflection on how best to prepare university students for the responsibilities of self-governance.
Civic Thought: A Proposal for University-Level Civic Education (Storey 2023)
A Research Methods Class that Helps Students Recognize the Worth of Others (Binder 2025)
Commencing Character: a Case Study of Character Development in College (Lamb et al. 2022)
Practicing Democracy: A Toolkit for Educating Civic Professionals
Cooperation, Not Compromise in the Classroom
What Exactly is a Republic Anyway? (Harvard Gazette Article)
Renewing America’s Civic Education (AmericanHeritage.com 2025)
“You Will Be Good Citizens” (Hoover Institution 2025)
America and Its Universities Need a New Social Contract (Allen in The Atlantic)
Josiah Ober’s Mission to Revitalize Democracy and Civic Education (Stanford Report)
Reading Boethius in the Trumpocene (Staiano-Daniels in Liberal Currents)
Our Civics Deficit is a National Security Crisis (Carrese in The Washington Examiner)
Stanford Students Learn to Lead with Civic Courage (Stanford Report)
