Yale launches Center for Civic Thought to promote thoughtful discourse
Yale University
New Haven, Conn. — Immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel, a group of 10 Yale students from a variety of backgrounds convened on campus to discuss the unthinkable.
Brought together by the university’s Civic Thought Initiative (CTI), which encourages open dialogue on difficult issues in small, seminar-style settings, the group included Jewish students with diverging views on Israel, students who were active advocates for Palestinians in Gaza, and a former childhood war refugee.
“Understandably, it was an emotionally charged and difficult conversation,” recalled Enza Jonas-Giugni, a recent Yale College graduate who at the time was a student fellow with the program. “And yet, instead of talking past one another, remaining entrenched in previously formed views about the conflict, or descending into hostility, we grieved, asked questions about parts of the conflict’s history that we remained ignorant of or uncertain about, and confronted the tough questions head on.”
In 2019, Yale political scientist Bryan Garsten created CTI in response to what he saw as a hunger among students to engage in intellectual discussions on important issues, but in an environment that encouraged them to try out ideas and hear from people with a range of political and philosophical perspectives. Now, six years later, Yale is building on that small initiative with the launch of a new nonpartisan Center for Civic Thought.
The mission of the center is “to encourage a thoughtful public discourse and a civically responsible intellectual life,” said Garsten, a professor of political science and humanities in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the center’s director.
“We all have a stake in making our shared civic life more thoughtful,” said Yale President Maurie McInnis. “The new Center for Civic Thought acknowledges the important role Yale plays in helping to cultivate habits of thought and support free expression, on campus and beyond, that are so essential for the future of higher education and our nation.”
According to Garsten, the center will encourage civic thinking that draws on and integrates various forms of knowledge — academic research, practical experiences, history, classic texts of philosophy, literature, and political thought — to inform citizens’ practical judgements. It will provide the stimulus for this broad-based thinking by convening conversations, creating classes and curricula, and supporting research.
And when it officially opens on July 1, it will work on furthering these goals at three levels: on campus, in the broader New Haven community, and nationally.
“It’s a difficult moment for universities,” Garsten said. “We’re all thinking about their relationship to the rest of society, and we’re worried about the trust gap that has opened up. Work like this is strongly rooted in our home communities, and emphasizing the university’s core mission of researching and discussing fundamental moral and political questions is important to rebuilding trust.”
Working through disagreement
At the campus level, the center will build on the work of CTI, hosting events around certain themes every year, and inviting scholars, journalists, politicians, and authors from varying perspectives to participate in discussions. Importantly, Garsten noted, the aim is not to simply give these visiting experts a platform or stage a debate, but to bring them into open discussions with students and ask them to answer difficult questions.
“I think you need to give students the experience of talking with people who may come from a very different perspective and feeling the discomfort of the disagreement, and then working through that,” he said.
Pericles Lewis, dean of Yale College, which is supporting the center, said it reinforces the university's commitment to liberal education “by fostering the free exchange of ideas and encouraging students to engage in productive conversations across lines of disagreement.”
Its broader aim, Lewis added, “is to cultivate students’ intellectual and civic capacities and to prepare them to thrive in a complex and changing society.”
Indeed, one of the most important jobs of a university is to fuel curiosity and inspire challenging discussions, said Steven Wilkinson, dean of FAS. “The Center for Civic Thought will bring together students and faculty from across the disciplines to do just that, at Yale and beyond,” he said.
The center will also offer course-development grants and postdoctoral fellowships, and hopes to invite visiting faculty who can add intellectual breadth to the Yale academic environment.
At the local level, the center will integrate Yale’s Citizens Thinkers Writers program, a tuition-free summer program co-founded by Garsten and Stephanie Almeida Nevin, a lecturer in Yale’s humanities program who serves as its managing director and is executive director of the new center. Citizens Thinkers Writers introduces New Haven high school students to foundational texts of philosophy, political science, and literature. Students live on campus, attending morning seminars taught by faculty and afternoon discussions with community leaders.
The program’s approach to civic education “prioritizes small, rigorous conversations, rooted in place, deepened by reading, and linked to practical expertise,” Nevin said. Now in its 10th year, that program has welcomed students from 13 high schools; nearly half of them are or will be the first in their families to either attend or graduate from a 4-year college.
Nationally, the center is partnering with the nonprofit Aspen Institute’s Philosophy & Society Initiative, which sponsors publications, events, and original research that grapple with contentious political and moral questions. The partnership with the Washington D.C.-based organization makes sense, Garsten said, since the two entities have similar goals and will establish a link with the D.C. professional communities, “bringing capacity for deeper reflection to the national stage, and fresh possibilities for practical engagement to Yale.”
During the 2025-26 academic year, the center will prioritize three areas of inquiry: constitutional democracy in America in its 250th year; the role of universities in civic life; and humanity in the age of artificial intelligence.
Higher ed and public discourse
Garsten has long been engaged with how institutions of higher education can encourage thoughtful public discourse. He is a former chair of Yale’s Humanities Program, a past member of the National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education and the Harvard Higher Education Leaders Forum, and frequently presents at conferences about liberal education and its civic importance. He is a member of the Alliance for Civics in the Academy and of the Civic Collaboratory of Citizens University.
The center is supported by an external board of advisors consisting of Danielle Allen, the Conant University Professor at Harvard University; Samuel Kimbriel, the founding director of the Philosophy & Society Initiative at the Aspen Institute; Yuval Levin, the director of social, cultural and Constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute; and Josiah Ober, the Mitsotakis Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a founder of the Stanford Civics Initiative at Stanford University.
At Yale, the center’s faculty advisory council includes Kerwin Charles, the Indra K. Nooyi Dean at Yale School of Management and the Frederick W. Beinecke Professor of Economics, Policy and Management; Robert Gooding-Williams, the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Philosophy in the FAS; Philip Gorski, the Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology (FAS); Daniel Greco, professor of philosophy (FAS); Martin Hagglund, the Birgit Baldwin Professor of Humanities and Comparative Literature (FAS); Jennifer Herdt, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School and professor of religious studies (FAS); Hélène Landemore, professor of political science (FAS); Claire Priest the Simeon E. Baldwin Professor of Law at Yale Law School (YLS) and professor of history (FAS); and Keith Whittington, the David Boies Professor of Law at YLS and professor of political science (FAS).
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