Ohio Civics Centers Symposium
APRIL 25, 2025
The Blackwell Inn and Conference Center
About the Chase Center
The Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society was established by the State of Ohio in 2023 to research and teach the historical ideas, traditions, and texts that have shaped the American constitutional order and society. Like its namesake, the Chase Center recognizes that American citizenship is a high calling, one for all Americans. Following in Chase’s footsteps, the Chase Center is a robust academic community dedicated to research and scholarship, teaching, and service in the field of civic thought and leadership.
The Chase Center will prepare students to live well in whatever path life takes them and to simultaneously do well for Ohio and the United States, like Salmon P. Chase. The Center’s courses give students the opportunity to read primary texts; its curriculum emphasizes research and writing; student regularly present their research and viewpoints orally, both in class and in other fora; and students both learn about and have opportunities to hone their capacity for leadership.
A special thank you to our co-sponsors for their contributions to our symposium.
Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability
Center for Ethics and Human Values
Breakfast – Pfahl 3rd Floor Lobby 7:30 a.m. Symposium Agenda
Welcome – Pfahl 302 8:30 a.m.
Panel: Civic Partisanship – Pfahl 302 – Break – 10:0 0 a.m. 10:15 a.m. Roundtable: Civic Dialogue – Pfahl 302 – Break –12:00 p.m. 11:45 a.m.
Keynote: Civic Bargains – Pavillion 1:30 p.m. – Break –8:35 a.m. 1:45 p.m.
Panel: Civic Curricula – Pfahl 302 3:15 p.m. – Break –3:30 p.m.
Closing Remarks – Pfahl 302 4:55 p.m.
Roundtable: Civic Thought – Pfahl 302 5:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m.
Cocktail Reception – Pfahl 3rd Floor Lobby – Event End –
PANEL
Civic Partisanship
Location: Pfahl 302
Time: 8:35 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
Panelist: Susan McWilliams Barndt
Daniel DiSalvo
Peter Levine
Verlan Lewis
Guiding Questions:
To what extent should civic education aspire to get students beyond partisanship? And how are the politics of civics education shaped by institutional context (for instance, at large public universities versus small private colleges)?
Supplemental Readings:
Verlan Lewis and Hyrum Lewis, The Founders’ Political Framework Did Not Involve ‘Left’ and ‘Right
Pete Levine, People are Not Points in Space and The Democratic Mission of Higher Education
ROUNDTABLE
Civic Dialogue
Location: Pfahl 302
Time: 10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.
Panelist: John Rose
Stephanie Shonekan
Michael Neblo
Aaron Yarmel
Guiding Questions:
What are the conditions of civil discourse? And to what extent do controversial topics benefit from a common curriculum versus an à la carte approach?
Supplemental Readings:
John Rose, How I Liberated My College Classroom
Adam Seagrave and Stephanie Shonekan, How to Teach About Race Head-On
KEYNOTE
Civic Bargains
Location: Pavilion
Time: 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Speaker: Josiah Ober
Supplemental Reading:
Brook Manville and Josiah Ober,The Civic Bargain
Josiah Ober, Renewing America’s Civic Education
Josiah Ober is the Constantine Mitsotakis Chair in the Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences, specializing in the areas of ancient and modern political theory and historical institutionalism. Ober is founder and faculty director of the Stanford Civics Initiative, which developed new course requirements on citizenship for first-year students. Ober is also Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he serves on the Executive Committee of the Alliance for Civics in the Academy. His scholarship is in the field of historical institutionalism and political theory, focusing on the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world and its contemporary relevance. Ober’s most recent book, co-authored with Brook Manville and published by Princeton University Press, is The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives.
PANEL
Civic Curricula
Location: Pfahl 302
Time: 1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.
Panelists: Jeremy Bailey
Joshua Dunn
Br yan Garsten
Melinda Zook
Guiding Questions:
What should the disciplinary substance of civics include? In particular, how should civics position itself between the humanities and great books versus the social sciences and public policy, or between graduate education and specialized scholarship versus public outreach and direct community engagement?
ROUNDTABLE
Civic Thought
Location: Pfahl 302
Time: 3:30 p.m. – 4:55 p.m.
Panelists: Benjamin Storey
Scott Carrell
Roosevelt Montas
Russell Muirhead
Sandra Peart
Guiding Questions:
Should there be a new discipline of “Civic Thought”? How would Civic Thought be distinguished from existing disciplines and established interdisciplinary programs?
Supplemental Reading:
Ben and Jenna Storey, Civic Thought: A Proposal for University Level Civic Education
Panelist Bios
Jeremy Bailey is Sanders Chair in Law and Liberty and Director of the Institute for American Constitutional Heritage at the University of Oklahoma. He is co-editor of the American Political Thought book series with the University Press of Kansas.
Susan McWilliams Barndt is Professor of Politics at Pomona College. She sits on the Executive Committee of the American Political Science Association, and is a recent co-editor of the journal American Political Thought. Scott Carrell is Professor in the Department of Economics and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs in the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California Davis.
Daniel DiSalvo is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at the City College of New York - CUNY, and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Joshua Dunn is Professor and Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the Howard H. Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs.
Bryan Garsten is Professor of Political Science and the Humanities at Yale University, as well as the founder and director of the Citizens Writers Thinkers program for New Haven public schools.
Peter Levine is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor in Citizenship and Public Affairs in the Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University, where he is also Director of the Civic Studies program.
Verlan Lewis is Stirling Professor of Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, and has recently held visiting appointments at Oxford, Stanford, and Harvard.
Roosevelt Montás is the incoming John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College. Previously he was Senior Lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia, where he was also Director of the Core Curriculum at Columbia College from 2008 to 2018.
Russell Muirhead is Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics and co-director of the Political Economy Project at Dartmouth College. He also serves as member of New Hampshire’s House of Representatives, representing Grafton’s 12th district.
Michael Neblo is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA) at The Ohio State University.
Sandra Peart is Dean and E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professor in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond.
John Rose is Professor of the Practice in the School of Civic Life and Leadership at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and directs the Morehead-Cain Scholarship Foundation’s Dialogue and Discourse Program.
Stephanie Shonekan is Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities and Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland.
Benjamin Storey is Senior Fellow in Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and was previously Jane Gage Hipp Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University.
Aaron Yarmel is Associate Director of the Center for Ethics and Human Values at The Ohio State University.
Melinda Zook is the Germaine Seelye Oesterle Professor of History and Director of the Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts program at Purdue University.
chasecenter.osu.edu