The Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society has begun its new courses in the center. The classes both focus on different aspects of American history. Credit: Caleb Blake | Lantern File Photo
The Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture and Society launched its inaugural class courses at the start of the Autumn 2025 semester.
The two courses — Civic Thought and Leadership 2100.1 The American Civic Tradition: Creeds, Conflicts and Cooperation and Civic Thought and Leadership 2100.2 The American Civic Tradition: Then and Now — are listed on the Chase Center website.
Created under a relatively new state law, often referred to as Senate Bill 117, the new center sparked controversy among faculty as some questioned the center’s purpose, goals and potential ideological motives, according to prior Lantern reporting.
Assistant Professor Wes Siscoe, who teaches the creeds conflicts and cooperation class, said concerns over political neutrality have not been an issue in his class, which focuses on the Declaration of Independence as a primary source of discussion on American citizenship.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a big challenge with political neutrality here,” Siscoe said. “The declaration is obviously part of our common heritage, so there’s a way to talk about the declaration that’s just about what it means to be an American, right? And at that point, you’re not necessarily like on either side of the political spectrum.”
The course focusing on American civic tradition is taught by Lecturer David Little, primarily using the work of French aristocrat and philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville as a lens to look at the history of the national civic principles to its current status.
The Chase Center website says that through these classes, students “will sharpen their logical and analytical reasoning, as well as develop strong written and verbal communication skills.”
In these courses, students are encouraged to share their views while engaging in respectful dialogue with students who have opposing perspectives. According to the Chase Center website, this allows students to exchange their opinions in the “collective pursuit of deeper knowledge and shared understanding.”
Siscoe said that the first two meetings with a 17-student class from a variety of majors, many of whom are Chase scholars, went “pretty well.”
“When I came on the first day, students were already talking and introducing themselves,” Siscoe said. “I was glad to see that people were interacting and seeing people be excited to take the class.”
A former instructor in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and Bowling Green State University, Siscoe said he was drawn to the course as an instructor because it focuses on the ideological basis of the Declaration of Independence.
“This class really made a lot of sense to me in terms of taking philosophical ideas and their historic context and foundations and then saying ‘oh, well, how did those get worked into the declaration? How does that affect American society, the American Constitution?’ this sort of thing,” Siscoe said.
Little, a former instructor of American studies courses at Christopher Newport University, said that his smaller class of eight students began right away with reading and discussion of two contrasting contemporary pieces on the topic of civic and patriotic education.
“I think it invites them to not only interrogate the authors and see whether they agree with them, but also to kind of speak to their own experiences,” Little said. “Have they received a patriotic education or a liberal education and what has that meant to them?”
Both professors said that discussion and active participation in reading and presenting both sides of an argument or topic is foundational to their courses.
“It’s largely a discussion-based class, so students are going to prepare to present other different readings,” Siscoe said. “My kind of role is to just give tidbits, right?”
Siscoe said that he allows students to discuss with each other their thoughts, but he will jump in to make sure students understand the bigger picture by giving more relevant information to their discussions.
Little also emphasizes the importance of the texts assigned for the class.
“I really make an effort to assign a manageable amount of reading,” Little said. “I think all of this deserves to be read closely. It’s not to be skimmed or surveyed, where we can really grapple with their ideas.”
Siscoe said that while contemporary political topics will be part of the course, discussion will be student-led and examples provided by students will “bring the readings to life,” similar to the other civics class.
“It’s not the kind of thing where I’m worried about, we’re [not] going to have all one side or the other because all the students are going to be contributing to the conversations,” Siscoe said.
Little said that neutrality is inherent in his course due to the variety of interpretations that have been drawn from de Tocqueville’s work, the multiple other viewpoints that will be discussed throughout the course and Little’s own method of instructing and assigning readings.
“Different people see different things in Tocqueville,” Little said. “I think [he] is someone who is hard to categorize politically. I kind of make the lawyerly case for whoever we’re reading, and I try not to take positions, in the assigning things which, in part I was given [in] the syllabus, but when I do choose things, it doesn’t mean that I agree with every idea in them.”
Both Siscoe and Little said that their courses fit into Ohio State’s motto of “Disciplina in civitatem” or “Education for citizenship,” through their presentation of diverse perspectives on citizenship.
“The OSU mission of educating for citizenship invites that discussion,” Little said.“Whether [different themes and ideas] fit, you know, are they the same thing? Do they fit together?”
Siscoe added that higher education isn’t just to prepare for a career.
“A lot of students come to college thinking “oh this is so I can get a good job.” Siscoe said. “What we’re doing as the Chase Center is very explicitly, you know, it’s not job training, but it is really connected to Ohio State’s mission of education for citizenship.”
More information about the Chase Center and the courses offered can be found on their website.
