Chase Center hosts conversation on citizenship with university leaders

What role should the nation’s leading research universities play in educating the next generation of U.S. citizens? For the presidents of two of the largest research engines in higher education, the answer is: a significant one.

The Ohio State University’s Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society hosted a conversation between Ohio State President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. and Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels at the Ohio Union on Tuesday. The Chase Center is an independent academic center for teaching and researching the foundation of the American constitutional order and its impact on society.

“The Chase Center arose to address two related concerns. First, many Americans appear to lack essential knowledge about our common civic tradition. And second, we Americans seem to have lost our capacity to discuss and debate with each other as fellow citizens in a civil and productive manner,” Chase Center Executive Director Lee J. Strang said. “Together, these have led to a worrisome polarization of American life and a precipitous drop in trust in American higher education.”

Strang said the conversation with the presidents focused on how colleges and universities educate and prepare students to be engaged citizens in a robust democracy.

“Our mission is to take these young people who are on our campus and show them we are a force for good,” Carter said. “What does good mean? That means that they’re going to go out, become a great citizen, which means doing something bigger than themselves.”

Carter said being a good citizen means being engaged and willing to serve your community. He said the job of Ohio State, broadly, is to expose students to every angle of an argument and let them know that Ohio State would teach them not what to think, but how to think.

Daniels said it is important for institutions like Ohio State and Johns Hopkins to recognize the fragility of democratic institutions and to prepare students to defend democracy and democratic values.

"You don’t inherit an understanding of democracy through the gene pool. You have got to be educated for it,” Daniels said.

“It requires an understanding of the institutions that undergird our democracy. It requires an understanding of the values that we are seeking to represent and embody. It requires a capacity to operate as citizens who can navigate difference, to see how you are able to build coalitions in support of shared objectives and so forth. All of these things require education.”

Both presidents emphasized the importance of combining research and citizenship education to prepare students for democratic engagement. Daniels said conversations about the university’s role in a democracy and the bedrock values of the university should begin with each class of first-year students.

Carter emphasized that students come from all over the world to Ohio State so they can be a part of campus life. He said students want to engage with the more than 1,400 student organizations and have meaningful dialogue with their peers in the thousands of courses offered.

Carter mentioned the university’s new Listen. Learn. Discuss. platform as a way for the campus community to have meaningful conversations about difficult subjects.

“How can you learn how to have a civil conversation and disagree, but maybe disagree in a better way?” he said. “It’s really just a chance to learn how to have your opinion, listen to the opinions of others, still hold on to your opinion, but not be a jerk about it.”

Strang said the center will continue to cultivate open dialogue through public events like the conversation held this week. The center’s first classes will be offered this fall and, over time, will be offered to all Ohio State students: undergraduate, graduate, and professional. The center will welcome its founding faculty in the new academic year, he said, who are extraordinary scholars from America and the world’s leading academic institutions.

He announced that the Chase Center had received a $3 million gift from the Stanton Foundation – a national leader in the protection of First Amendment rights and a longtime donor to Ohio State. The foundation, established by Ohio State alumnus and CBS executive Frank Stanton, supports key causes that were dear to Frank during his lifetime, including the cultivation of an informed citizenry and the First Amendment.

The gift will support Chase Center scholars, conferences, events and other programs in Ohio.

The conversation with the presidents was co-sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Human Values (CEHV), the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA) and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.