Civic Life and Leadership Minor

SCiLL’s minor offers engaging courses that explore the foundational questions, texts, and traditions that have shaped American democracy and Western thought. Through this interdisciplinary program, students will gain the knowledge and skills to lead with wisdom, have reasoned conversations across differences, and live with purpose in our pluralistic democracy.

The curriculum targets four core competencies:

developing a civic perspective that connects philosophy, history, religion, economics, and politics;
mastering the American civic tradition and its global influences;
critically examining how this tradition serves broader human flourishing;
and building skills for public discourse and leadership.

Students will learn civil discourse as they tackle life’s perennial questions: What constitutes the good life? What are the best political and economic systems? How should scientific knowledge guide policy? What founding principles should America preserve or revise? Students will also gain the practical skills and background experiences to succeed in many professional careers.

Requirements

In addition to the program requirements listed below, students must earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.0 in the minor core requirements.

Code	Title	Hours
SCLL 102	Pursuing the Good Life	3
SCLL 103	Seeking the Just Society	3
Three electives, one from each of the three categories of courses listed below		9
Total Hours		15

Course Categories

Civic Discourse and Leadership

The Civic Discourse (CD) category is an opportunity for students to learn how to disagree fruitfully across differences. Courses in this category will expose students to controversial questions and debates. These courses will encourage productive approaches to disagreement that a pluralistic society depends on. CD courses will do more than simply teach skills in disagreeing well; they will also deeply engage with the facts, context, and nuance surrounding the topics they cover, requiring students to achieve a rigorous understanding of the topic or theme in question.

Code	Title	Gen Eds
SCLL 85	FYS: How to be a Citizen	FC-VALUES, FY-SEMINAR, COMM-BEYOND
SCLL 110	Reasoning Together: Civic Dialogue in Polarized Times	FC-VALUES
SCLL 170	Left, Right, Center	FC-PAST, FC-VALUES
SCLL 185	How to be a Citizen	FC-VALUES, COMMBEYOND
SCLL 201	Practice of Civic Life and Leadership ^F	FY-LAUNCH, COMMBEYOND
SCLL 240	Free Speech and Its Limits: From Socrates to Cancel Culture	FC-VALUES, FC-KNOWING
SCLL 270	Speech and Power in Political Life	FC-VALUES
SCLL 352	Labcoats and Legislators: Navigating Science and Policy in a Democratic Society	FC-VALUES

^F FY-Launch class sections may be available. A FY-Launch section fulfills the same requirements as a standard section of that course, but also fulfills the FY-SEMINAR/FY-LAUNCH First-Year Foundations requirement. Students can search for FY-Launch sections in ConnectCarolina using the FY-LAUNCH attribute.

American Civic Life

The American Civic Life (ACL) category is an opportunity for students to critically examine the nature, structure, and foundations of the American regime. Courses satisfying the ACL category may focus on American political development, the American intellectual tradition, the sources of American civic thought, or comparisons of American civic life with some of its alternatives, historical or contemporary. These courses will offer students the opportunity to understand the American civic regime and offer tools for critically analyzing it.

Code	Title	Gen Eds
SCLL 79	FYS: American Politics and Literature	FC-AESTH, FY-SEMINAR
SCLL 150	Foundations of American Civic Life	FC-VALUES, FAD
SCLL 150H	Foundations of American Civic Life	FC-VALUES, FAD
SCLL 160	American Political Economy	FC-PAST, FC-VALUES
SCLL 165	What is the American Character?	FAD
SCLL 175	American Leadership: Statesmen, Politicians, and Demagogues	FC-PAST, FC-POWER
SCLL 180	Tocqueville's America: Sustaining Democracy	FAD
SCLL 207	The Global Cold War	FC-GLOBAL
SCLL 222	Universities and Democracy: Purpose and Practice	FC-VALUES
SCLL 244	Declaration of Independence and Civic Foundations	FAD
SCLL 250	Democracy: Ancient and Modern	FC-VALUES, FAD
SCLL 315	America Through Foreign Eyes	None
SCLL 430	Representation and Democracy	None
SCLL 500	Grand Strategy	FC-PAST, FC-GLOBAL
SCLL 510	Human Rights in the Modern World	None

^H Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply.

Fundamental Questions and Ideas

The Fundamental Questions and Ideas (FQ) category invites students to examine the fundamental questions of human life and political society through the reading of classic philosophical, political, literary, and religious texts that speak to these questions. Courses satisfying the FQ category will encourage deep reading to address foundational human desires and experiences like justice, happiness, love, marriage, education, family, crime, punishment, faith, and death, as well as questions about how to structure political life to facilitate human flourishing. FQ courses are designed to allow students to live reflective and flourishing lives.

Code	Title	Gen Eds
SCLL 77	FYS: CS Lewis in a Disenchanted World	FC-AESTH, FY-SEMINAR
SCLL 83	FYS: Human Being and Citizen	FC-VALUES, FY-SEMINAR
SCLL 104	Classics of Civic Thought	FC-AESTH
SCLL 125	Utopias and Dystopias: Civic Possibilities	FC-PAST
SCLL 132	Education and Civic Ideals	FC-PAST, FC-VALUES
SCLL 136	Love and Death	None
SCLL 140	Islam, Outsiders, and Civic Life	FC-PAST
SCLL 148	Encounters: Travel and Civic Life	FC-GLOBAL
SCLL 204	Why Read? The Theory and Practice of Reading	FC-KNOWING
SCLL 215	The Politics of Comedy and Tragedy	FC-VALUES
SCLL 218	Vocation: Finding Purpose in Life and Work	FC-VALUES
SCLL 232	Lawbreakers: Crime, Punishment, and Modernity	FC-AESTH
SCLL 235	Heroes and Leaders	FC-VALUES
SCLL 242	Christian Ethics and Moral Controversies	FC-VALUES
SCLL 245	The Family in the Civic Order	FC-PAST, FC-VALUES
SCLL 252	The Communist Challenge: Ideals, Failures, and Lessons	FC-PAST, FC-GLOBAL
SCLL 255	Thought and Action in the Ancient Polis	None
SCLL 280	Rome and the Republican Imagination	FC-VALUES
SCLL 304	Thomas Aquinas: Faith and Reason	FC-VALUES, FC-KNOWING
SCLL 318	The Republic of Ideas: The Enlightenment in Civic Perspective	RESEARCH, FC-PAST
SCLL 320	Liberalism and its Critics	FC-VALUES
SCLL 340	The Crescent and the Cross: Islamic and Christian Thought	FC-PAST
SCLL 350	Humans to Machines: Science, Technology, and Social Order	FC-KNOWING
SCLL 425	Natural Law and Human Rights	None
SCLL 429	Political Theology	FC-VALUES, FC-POWER

Opportunities for Civic Life Minors

Students minoring in civic life and leadership also have access to the following co-curricular opportunities:

Personal mentorship from a faculty member, including check-ins every semester, advice on course selection, and internship and post-graduate advising;
Eligibility for a Libertas Scholarship, which offers $1500/semester toward tuition, for up to eight semesters;
Eligibility for summer research and internship funding;
The opportunity to attend and participate in reading groups, debate societies, and events put on by the department and the Program for Public Discourse.

Questions

Contact SCiLL’s director of undergraduate studies, Professor Rita Koganzon at koganzon@unc.edu.