Kent State prepares to add mandatory civics course under new Ohio law

Kent State University is moving forward with plans to add a mandatory civic literacy course for undergraduate students after the recent passing of Ohio Senate Bill 1, which requires all state universities to add the class to their curriculum.

 

Under the law, every incoming student beginning with the class of 2030 will have to complete a course focused on American civic literacy to graduate. Universities had to submit their proposals for the new course to the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) by September 30.

The College of Arts and Sciences is overseeing the development of the course at Kent State. Dean Mandy Munro-Stasiuk said the committee, which includes ten faculty members from various departments, met weekly starting in July to determine how they were going to create this requirement before the deadline.

 

“As a committee, we decided that the civic literacy requirement will be embedded into the Kent Core,” Munro-Stasiuk said. “But we’re also requiring that those courses fulfill either a humanities or social science requirement as well, to try to get a bit more flexibility and not just add a full extra class onto the Kent Core.”

 

Instead of creating an entirely new class, Munro-Stasiuk said there are two current courses being tweaked to fulfill this requirement – Early American History and World Politics. 

 

“It’s not a lot of work because they’re already covering a lot of the material, but we’re changing them up a little bit and adding the civic literacy learning outcomes that we developed as a committee,” she said. “It’s not a heavy lift for the faculty or departments, since they’re already offering those classes.”

 

Since every student will have to take a course that satisfies the civics requirement, an important aspect to consider was whether there are enough faculty to teach this many students and if there will be enough seats in the classes. 

 

Munro-Stasiuk said they won’t be putting  any new resources toward  these courses because there is no new money coming from the state to help satisfy this new requirement.  However,  since the two courses were previously offered, there’s already instructors to teach them and a good number of seats available. World Politics, which will be offered online, will have about 300 seats per section and Early American History, offered both online and in-person, will have 65 seats per section.

 

“The faculty are super involved in shaping the structure of the class. They were already teaching these, so they’re just morphing it to fit the requirements of the mandate,” she said. “They might change the course names to reflect the new focus of the class, but other than that, they’ve already been doing this.”

 

Dr. Michael Ensley, an associate professor of political science and a member of the university committee shaping the course, said Kent’s approach is to integrate the new civic literacy mandate into existing curriculum without drastically changing course content.

 

“The framework of the class is very similar,” Ensley said. “The readings that were being asked to incorporate were, in some cases, already directly included – reading the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and reading the Federalist papers. Most of the ideas that were being asked to be covered were already in the classes.”

 

Ensley said the committee also had to work through the technical aspects of implementing this new requirement. Because the law applies to all students, starting with those who graduate in Spring 2030, some who started school earlier but take longer to graduate may be unexpectedly required to complete the course.

 

“If you’re a student who started this year, but take five years to graduate, all of a sudden you have this new requirement,” Ensley said. “So there are a lot of technical little aspects that we’ve had to work through.”

 

Although he said he supports the idea of adding a course to strengthen civic literacy, he expressed some concerns about the fact that the law mandates specific readings instead of just specific learning objectives.

 

“I think there’s value in getting different people thinking about what key foundational documents are,” Ensley said. “So I don’t like the idea of explicitly mandating these specific documents, but the idea of a general American civic literacy requirement is a good thing.”

 

He also said this mandate was not unprecedented. Many other states, such as Texas, have courses like this, and some even require students to take a course on state government as well. This Senate Bill 1 requirement is just part of a broader U.S. goal to improve civic literacy among college students, he said.

 

Although most current students won’t be affected by the mandate, Undergraduate Student Government President Ivory Kendrick said adding a new class could complicate degree plans for some students. He said many degree plans are already packed with required courses, leaving barely any room for additional classes. 

As a public health major with a political science minor, he said he recognizes the intent behind the mandate but isn’t sure how much value it’ll add to most students’ college experience, especially for those that already have an understanding of our government.

 

“I think it’ll be just another requirement,” Kendrick said. “I would’ve liked to see this in a K-12 school instead, not just college. It’s creating a disconnect of knowledge for those who haven’t gone to college.”

 

He also said the mandate’s emphasis on certain historical documents won’t particularly give students an understanding of civics in the modern era, and he would rather see students learn more about local and state governments.

 

“Reading the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution in old English doesn’t really help people understand civics,” he said. “It’s more important to understand what each level of government does and what those elections look like as well.”

 

However, as the USG President, Kendrick said he hopes the class can provide insight and become a gateway to more active participation in government, especially on campus.

 

“I think it could spark good discussion about what your rights are and how the government is supposed to work,” he said. “You don’t have to be a political science major just to be involved in the government and involved locally or community-wise.”

 

Munro-Stasiuk emphasized that the goal of Kent’s civic literacy course is to make it relevant to students, and to give them knowledge they can use in the future.

 

“Success to me would be that students get through the class in a way that resonates and makes a difference in their life,” she said. “As long as the students are getting something out of it, that is what’s important to me.”