Givers, Doers, & Thinkers—A Podcast on Philanthropy and Civil Society · Jeremy Beer

Richard Avramenko, Justin Dyer, and Josh Dunn & rethinking academia for the common good

·47 min·3 clips

Joshua Dunn says his 2022 UT interview required armed security for a “very boring lecture on geology and the political founding.”

The episode opens with Jeremy Beer placing the conversation inside a season centered on nonprofit innovators and the renewal of American civil society. He introduces Richard Avramenko, Justin Dyer, and Joshua Dunn as the largest guest lineup the show has hosted, and as leaders of new or relatively new legislatively created schools within major state universities. In Beer’s framing, these schools are places for non-ideological teaching and study of American civics, politics, and history. The guests are asked to explain what these schools are, why legislatures created them, what problems they are meant to solve, and what legislators hope to achieve by creating them. The conversation keeps coming back to the idea that universities have always had a role in educating for citizenship. A guest points to the University of Texas motto and to the notion that education is the guardian genius of democracy. From there, the discussion broadens into what it means to prepare people for republican government. That includes familiarity with Western civilization, the constitutional inheritance, the origins of American government, and the habits and dispositions needed for leadership in a free society. The guests treat that mission as something to embrace rather than apologize for. They also argue that new schools are a practical way to make room for new degree programs, new students, and new faculty members who want to do this kind of work. The discussion treats Arizona State University as a proof of concept that helped persuade regents, presidents, legislators, and others that these schools can matter. That example is used to show that the model is not just rhetoric. It can be built, staffed, and expanded. The conversation also looks ahead to graduate education, which the guests say has not yet been fully worked out. That future step matters if the model is to last over time. The episode closes with an emphasis on campus influence and the hope that students, once shaped by these schools, will carry the idea outward. Beer ends by pointing listeners to the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, the School of Civic Leadership at UT Austin, and the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at ASU. The tone stays careful and institutional throughout, with the guests making the case that civic formation belongs inside the university, not outside it.

As heard by us

A grounded case for civic education and institutional design, with the graduate-education piece still not fully settled.

This episode looks at legislatively created schools inside major state universities and makes the case that the project is really about civic education, institutional design, and what those schools are supposed to do.

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Why you'd press play

You want the case for civic education inside legislatively created schools at major state universities.

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