Stanford’s Civics Initiative (SCI) announced Wednesday the launch of a new minor in civic thought and practice. The minor will offer five tracks in civic history, civic thought, constitution and law, political economy and classical traditions.
The program is an extension of the mandatory first-year Civic, Liberal and Global Education (COLLEGE) curriculum. To fulfill the minor, all civics minors will have to complete COLLEGE 102: “Citizenship in the 21st Century,” a political science course titled “Designing Democracy,” as well as three courses to fulfill depth requirements and one course to fulfill breadth requirements. In total, students will be required to take six courses for a minimum of 20 units.
Javier Mejia, director of undergraduate studies for the minor, said that the Civics Initiative was initially kickstarted by Josiah Ober, a classics professor at Stanford, alongside a postdoctoral assistant, Brian Coyne.
Felipe Jafet ’26 was excited by the possibility of an expanded curriculum, which might engage with thinkers who believe in the U.S. system of self-government, a “free market” and beyond an academic orthodoxy. He said that a civics minor would be worth it as long as it “creates space for students to grapple with the minds that have personified the intellectual foundation of Western society.”
According to Mejia, the program was developed amidst a wider concern around the functioning of American institutions, and alongside a growing discussion about the purpose of education. He said the University was not intended to craft “better workers” but was rather a means for “human flourishing.”
The vocational turn that universities took – and students’ own increasing preference for technical degrees – is now in question, Mejia said. “Technology is probably part of this questioning,” he said, as some students reconsider technical degrees in an era of technological disruption.
Mejia also noted how COVID had already “changed the type of students that were on campus.” He said that students are “already more reflexive about social challenges,” especially as artificial intelligence began to transform students’ academic experience.
The Civics Initiative has offered courses since 2018. Enrollment in civics courses has trended up from an average of roughly 100 students per quarter in 2020 to around 300 by 2025, according to Civics Initiative data reviewed by The Daily.
Navaneet Baniya ’28, a recent transfer student, said that students taking PHIL171: “Justice,” a Civics Initiative course, had a wide range of opinions and disagreements but that the instructor, Coyne, was always balanced when presenting his views.
Mejia expressed hope that the minor’s different tracks will appeal to a wide range of students, from those interested in ideas and discourse to students who might have more practical orientations. The minor, he said, was also designed to appeal to a wide variety of ideological orientations and opinions. For him, part of the spirit of the minor’s design was not to present ideas to students but rather to promote habits that “lead to good citizenship.”