School of Civic Leadership - UT Austin

09/06/2026

It’s National Read a Book Day!

Reading groups are at the heart of SCL’s intellectual community. For a month and a half or so, up to a dozen participants meet with a faculty member to explore a great text, exchange ideas, and ask tough questions. All SCL students and faculty are welcome!

Fall 2026 reading groups include:

📖 Franz Kafka, The Trial
Led by Professor Jacob Howland
Enter Kafka’s unsettling world of law, bureaucracy, guilt, and the individual’s struggle to understand the powers that govern him.

📖 John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration
Led by Professor John Coffey
Explore Locke’s classic argument for religious toleration, individual conscience, and the limits of political authority.

📖 Seneca, Consolation
Led by Professor Max Lykins
Discover how Stoic philosophy can help us confront grief, adversity, and the parts of life beyond our control.

📖 Contemporary Issues in Bioethics
Led by Professor Reid Comstock
Examine competing arguments about some of the most difficult moral questions raised by medicine, technology, life, and death.

09/05/2026

"Keynes and Bown have produced a timely and readable book that offers an engaging foray into the different dimensions of trade conflict that have characterized international economic relations in recent years."

School of Civic Leadership Assistant Professor Josh Banerjee reviews How to Win a Trade War by Soumaya Keynes and Chad P. Bown in a recent Civitas Outlook, examining the book’s account of today’s shifting global trade landscape.

Read More:

"How to Win a Trade War" guides readers through recent events and offer a blueprint for how a country might emerge victorious from a trade war.

09/04/2026

Meet some of the newest members of the School of Civic Leadership’s Class of 2030. From law and government to business, health care, writing, and public service, these students bring a wide range of interests, experiences, and goals to SCL.

As they settle into their first few weeks of classes, we’re already seeing their eagerness to find their place at UT, explore student organizations, and get involved across the Forty Acres.

09/04/2026

A warm welcome, one handshake at a time! At last week’s Convocation, Dean Justin Dyer greeted our newest students as they marked the beginning of their SCL journey. 🤘

09/03/2026

Last week at Convocation, our newest students took part in a new tradition: signing the Civic Leadership register. Their names now sit alongside those of our inaugural class, and we look forward to adding more each year as the SCL community grows.

09/03/2026

"Teaching young people—especially future political, cultural, and commercial leaders—to read, write, and think for themselves is an urgent and essential task that helps all Americans."

So writes SCL Distinguished Visiting Professor Jacob Howland in a new essay for Civitas Outlook, in which he examines the challenges facing liberal education and argues for renewed attention to formative texts, rigorous writing, civil discourse, and open inquiry, especially in an age of declining reading, writing, and independent thought.

Read “Why Liberal Education Is Dying—and How to Save It.”

Liberal education, civil discourse, and open inquiry were once the bread-and-butter of American liberal arts colleges and university core curricula.

09/02/2026

We invite you to join us on Monday, September 14, at 4:30 p.m. in Patton Hall for “Freedom in the Political Thought of Late Antique Iran,” presented by the Workshop on Late Antiquity and featuring Dr. Jake Nabel of Penn State University.

Freedom in the ancient world is often described as a distinctly Greek and Roman value. Evidence from late antique Iran, however, tells a more complex story. Drawing on a range of historical sources, Dr. Nabel will explore āzādīh—“freedom” in Middle Persian—and reconsider long-standing assumptions about freedom across ancient civilizations.

The School of Civic Leadership is proud to co-sponsor this event alongside the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins, Department of Classics, Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas, and Department of History.

09/01/2026

What happens when justice begins to resemble a hunt?

In a new essay for Law & Liberty, SCL Distinguished Visiting Professor Jacob Howland revisits Franz Kafka’s The Trial as more than a critique of faceless bureaucracy. Tracing Kafka’s image of Justice as it transforms into Victory and then the goddess of the Hunt, Howland argues that institutions claiming to champion justice can instead stoke aggression toward their chosen targets.

Connecting Kafka’s warning to antisemitism in the internet age, Howland writes, “Scapegoating is an equal opportunity activity; a glance at social media makes it clear that anyone can participate, anyone can be targeted.”

Read More Here:

Kafka’s image of the metamorphosis of Justice captures the progression of antisemitism in the Internet age.

09/01/2026

Curious about life’s biggest questions and what makes an education worth pursuing? Whether you visit us in Austin or connect from home, there are several ways to discover what sets SCL apart.

Join us tomorrow for a virtual information session at 7PM tomorrow to learn about SCL’s mission, academic programs, faculty, student life, and more. You'll also be able to speak with SCL student ambassadors to hear firsthand what it is like to be an SCL student.

Sign up today to reserve your spot! https://utexas.pulse.ly/rto9sofj3t

08/31/2026

Gone to Civic Leadership was just the beginning! Thank you to everyone who helped welcome our newest students to SCL. We're so excited for what you'll accomplish throughout your time here on the 40 acres.