The Hamilton Center at the University of Florida is expanding its reach across the state after top higher education officials meeting in Tampa approved a new civic literacy course, “Civil Discourse, and the American Political Order,” that can be taught statewide.
“We want to make the University of Florida the top university in the nation for research and teaching on Western civilization,” William Inboden, the center’s director, said Wednesday during his presentation to the Board of Governors in Tampa.
The statewide course numbering system previously accepted the new course code, and the Florida Department of Education reviewed its sufficiency in teaching civic literacy. The course will launch at UF in spring 2025. Any of the other 11 public state universities can adopt the course, too.
The center at UF is focusing on fields of study and research Inboden said are “being neglected by most other top universities.”
Inboden lauded the center’s ability to hire senior faculty from institutions that include Harvard, Princeton, Vanderbilt and Oxford Universities with a “broad sense of values of classical liberal tradition.”
The Hamilton Center has 35 new faculty members and is looking to hire 20 more among more than 1,600 applications, according to Inboden. Each faculty applicant is required to showcase excellence in research, devotion to teaching and an alignment with the Hamilton Center’s academic mission, he added.
Two of the center’s proposed five majors – philosophy, politics, economics and law alongside great books and ideas – are approved for classes to begin as early as next spring. The other three proposed majors – history, statecraft and strategy; American foundations, institutions and law; and science, technology and society – are in the design and approval process. Each major will require a one-year course in Western civilization.
Florida is leading the rest of the way for the country with civic literacy requirements, Inboden said. According to Inboden’s initial findings, 3,455 UF freshmen need to fulfill the civic literacy requirement, and the Hamilton Center’s new course provides a fourth pathway to do so.
“We are often at odds with each other separated into different tribes – often afraid to say what we think and too often intolerant of other peoples’ views if they differ from our own,” Inboden said.
Inboden floated a long-term plan for providing a PhD program under the Hamilton Center, and Board of Governor Vice Chair Alan Levine toyed with the idea of Inboden working with the state’s K-12 education leadership to create a standardized civic education and literacy plan in Florida.
Before Indoden spoke, the Board of Governors also heralded the state’s controversial and recently adopted post-tenure review in state universities as a success. Under the 2023 state statute, universities are required to review all of its tenured faculty every five years, or 20% each year.
In spring 2024, 91% of all faculty reviewed exceeded or met expectations, the board reported. The remaining 9% were either told to work on a performance improvement plan or their contract or employment was terminated.
“It is a mechanism to award great performance,” board member Timothy Cerio said.
The same statute requires the State University System to complete an audit of all universities every three years. The most recent audit was completed in spring 2023.
The board’s audit and compliance committee said the Florida auditor general has expanded its UF audit to encompass the president’s office. Recent headlines about former UF president Ben Sasse’s excessive spending during 17-months in office led to the decision, committee staff member Julie Leftheris said during the presentation.