There are signs of a hopeful movement spreading on university campuses. New projects are promoting a renaissance of civic engagement to civilize the fractious, volatile conversations in America’s public square. It seems the trend should be in full stride at Catholic institutions. But the latest official tally implies these schools might be lagging behind.

If accurate, that’s a missed opportunity. The Church can help our polarized country revive places where “seldom is heard a discouraging word.” However, academia must realize that, when it comes to building a stronger society, the answer doesn’t entail lowering the volume. Any real improvement in the spirit of communication will require raising more ideas, and higher ideals, for people to talk about.

Landscaping for the Public Square

We should take inventory of this growing reform phenomenon. Noteworthy efforts are outlined in a document called “The New Landscape of ‘Civics Centers’ in Higher Education,” published in December 2025 by the Heterodox Academy.

The “HxA” calls itself “the only nonpartisan membership organization devoted to open inquiry that’s built from the inside”—that is, faculty, administrators, staff, and graduate students at hundreds of colleges “who care about their future.”

Some 45 civic-minded centers, institutes, and schools have been established, many in the past several years, says HxA. These aim to redirect attention and intention toward questions of our common good, our need to get along with each other.

The report presents data on these labs of advanced dialogue, established at 41 institutions in 25 states. They are reclaiming themes from the “civics” curriculum to push back against forces which stifle community spirit at the local and national levels. We can assume those challenges include relativism, emotion trumping reason, and rejection (or ignorance) of America’s founding principles.

According to an HxA video, the centers reflect a growing concern about “ideological imbalance” on campuses, the need for greater “viewpoint diversity,” and the lack of spaces for peaceful, productive discussion.

The movement started to percolate after Robert George, a leading legal scholar and political philosopher, established the James Madison Program at Princeton University in 2000.

Princetonians for Free Speech, a group partnered with the Madison Program, provides a link to HxA’s list of civics centers, including many public universities where the new initiatives were mandated by state legislatures—most of them promoted by Republicans, according to HxA.

More than a dozen private universities are also listed, but there are only two Catholic peers: the Woodley Institute for Civil Engagement and Humanistic Dialogue at Gonzaga University, and the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame.

The small presence of schools informed by Church affiliation is disappointing, partly because the idea of “civics centers” is such a big tent. The definition allows for a variety of approaches.

HxA says some establishments are “autonomous,” with their own faculty associates and a distinct identity. Others, like the James Madison Program, are “semi-autonomous,” part of an existing department or a channel to resources such as Prof. George’s tutelage. Still others are off-campus initiatives around which faculty and students cluster more casually.

The centers tend to focus on “civic thought” or “civic discourse,” or both, says HxA. The first category, found more often in the public university world, studies the ideas, history, and institutions of democracy, offering formation drawn from the liberal arts. The second category concentrates on building bridges across institutional or ideological divides, an approach which might be profound or peripheral.

What’s a Synonym for Civics?

A review of the 45 units, some of which are still in the development stage, shows us differences in tone and terminology. Tufts University has a Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education. The New School in New York City has a Center for the American Experience.

At Northwestern University, one can visit the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement. At the University of Virginia, people can check out the Think Again Initiative. At Iowa State, we might get swept up in the Center for Cyclone Civics.

What’s in a name? How deep is a school’s commitment?

The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal points to Arizona State University’s hefty investment in its School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership in 2016. The school boasts online of its ambition, a “defense of civilization.”

The Martin Center, based in Raleigh, NC, is itself a major provider player eading force for research and problem-solving regarding nitty-gritty of details of reform. “Our work,” it says, “equips policymakers, trustees, and institutional leaders with the ideas and tools needed to improve academic quality, reduce costs, and strengthen the core mission of higher education.”

That mission, according to its website, aims to “equip all students to flourish in their careers, embrace responsible citizenship, and grow as seekers of wisdom.”

Notre Dame’s Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government clearly offers a model for big thinking, with its multidisciplinary plunge into the “civic thought” category, employing both faith and reason.

Its self-definition speaks of exploring “the fundamental principles and practices of a free society so that citizens and civic leaders are equipped to secure our God-given natural rights, exercise the responsibilities of self-government, and pursue the common good.”

The university’s Catholic character and the “Catholic intellectual tradition” are invoked as aids in free inquiry and reasoned discussion, helping people tackle “enduring and contemporary questions concerning a just constitutional order.”

This Center benefits from an amalgam of structures and insights, propagated way before some of the examples monitored by HxA.

Notre Dame already operated a Tocqueville Program for Religion in Public Life that had been founded in 2009. And a Program in Constitutional Studies was established in 2012 to focus on “the enduring principles of constitutional government and ideas and institutions of a free society.” Now, those legacies contribute to the busy agenda of the Center, which took on its combined identity in 2021.

At Gonzaga University, the similarly impressive Woodley Institute says it is “rooted in Ignatian values and a Jesuit, Catholic, humanistic tradition.” These foster “civil engagement and dialogue through teaching, service, research, and public events.”

Woodley explicitly incorporates the “Catholic social doctrine” theme called subsidiarity—support for local empowerment—through projects which place students, faculty, and community members on the streets of Spokane, WA, as well as on “regional and global levels.” Development of this institute began last year.

Lots Going On Inside the List

One must assume the activities which come naturally for Notre Dame and Gonzaga are replicated at various other universities teaching Judeo-Christian values, as well as officially secular campuses. It’s possible some of these places don’t make HxA’s honor roll because they don’t fit neatly into its categories. Or the schools have not highlighted their practices in a sufficiently centralized, high-profile way.

Perhaps only the 45 current “civics centers” fully realize that growing throngs of disenchanted young people desperately crave the hope which is available. Students are hungry for stable structures and principles which can empower the mind and heart for meaningful accompaniment of others.

The blossoming zeal for solving fundamental problems spotlights the need for all generations to think more judiciously and passionately about the sustainability of humanity, pluralism, transcendent values, and civilization.

Catholics and others involved in spiritual formation can remind Americans of the important role that religious faith has played in the past and still can play to relieve today’s plagues of autocratic power games, personal isolation, and aimless despair.

The challenge to profess and exercise greater-good values, which are inextricable from themes of peace, justice, compassion, and practical wisdom (Aristotle’s phronesis), is more urgent than ever.

This is vital not only for colleges that seek HxA recognition as participants in civic-minded movements, but for grade schools and high schools—as well as other institutions, including families and churches. In all these sectors, Christians have joined in championing a “civics” of spirited solidarity.

Particles and Entanglements in Quantum Civics

Here are a few thoughts that could reinforce expansive perspectives on civics.

Merely claiming and studying freedom of speech is insufficient if the new discourse is not grounded in knowledge and understanding handed down from the history of Western civilization. If we emphasize only the freedom to speak, our conversations might shrink into passive tolerance of “the other,” rather than sowing collaboration in line with rights and responsibilities.

This collaboration entails talking more, not saying less. On the vocal path, we share diverse ideas and distinct talents. On the silent path, we retreat into our bubbles for the sake of “civility” and niceness (while possibly retaining a sense of superiority).

Often, people hold their tongue because they sense a lack of truthfulness, trust, hope, and respect. Let’s expect that those leading the adventure of inquiry will speak candidly and ask questions which invite newbies into mutual discovery. The invitation must embody a commitment to individual dignity.

We can make it downright compelling to join in more dialogue if our schools, churches, families, and all flesh-and-blood relationships encourage a principled pluralism enriched by the transcendentals—the true, good, and beautiful.

While educators nowadays must make their students comfortable with artificial intelligence, they should insist that reality, not artificiality, is the launchpad for civic progress. It ignites the unique upward trajectory of human consciousness. Free persons embrace participation in reality through humor, satire, religious experience, storytelling, mystery, imagination, and creativity in music and the arts.

Ironically, the joy of speaking out in these constructive ways must be enhanced by frequent retreats into silence, whether for deep thought or prayerful reflection—or the diligence of writing an essay without AI’s help. We must learn early in life that silence energizes us. We can listen to each other, honoring disagreements and humbly accepting correction from God and man.

A culture distracted by technological change and its ethos of efficiency will pull people away from the most precious uses of their time, such as empathy and accompaniment of loved ones in their grief or anxiety.

When communication is tied to a sense of communion, when mind and heart work in tandem, speech is truly free because we are fully ourselves. There are suddenly more “safe spaces” than we thought.

Report Card: “Plays Well with Others”

Jesus taught his disciples to spread his messages of love through genuine, active relationships—whether or not a “civics center” is holding an event.

He put it this way: “Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light; what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.” (Matthew 10:26-27)

This is a lens through which we can watch the “civics centers” trend. It must become a tool to raise society’s awareness of the human capability for growth and of the meaning we find in sharing our authentic selves.

Universities should foster a vision of balance between individual and group identity, expressed in ways that are classically liberal and broadly liberating. Catholic and other faith-based campuses can spotlight the balance they find via relationships with a God whose answers and mysteries induce curious souls and affinity groups to inform their consciences together.

Schools can share their roadmaps of reason and faith not merely to be recognized on HxA’s civics list, but to supply the new movement with a reservoir of wisdom, traditional and transcendent. That’s the same reservoir flowing through America’s founding documents.

The higher-ed personnel in the Heterodox Academy say they’re devoted to reform because they “care about their future.” But their duty to community must not be limited to on-campus stability and legislative mandates. Everyone who cares about our country’s democratic wherewithal must go beyond brick-and-mortar centers to spread words of hope in countless settings, over many years.

We can start by ensuring that all people have a voice, and that we’re listening—because it’s essential, not just diverse. Then, we can boost our stewardship of all opportunities for constructive conversation, whether they’re in a family home, a business meeting, a political convention, or a university’s institute.

The centers being built ultimately represent a way of life. This civics movement responds to an immediate need, but the real reform of attitudes is extracurricular. Once our human spirit is liberated from tense schemas like “oppressors vs. oppressed,” we’ll find much more we can achieve.

Everyone, certainly including people of faith, should be part of the broader construction boom. We’re firming up the foundations for more peaceful, productive cooperation in America to integrate speaking and hearing, contention and quietude, wisdom and wonder, ideas and ideals.

After 250 years of nationhood, we can feel young again. Best of all, we’ll wind up on an honor roll for fulfilling a civic duty we accept as our own.

Image from Microsoft Bing’s AI Co-Pilot designer.