Undergraduate Fellowships

The Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin is a community whose members study the foundations of the American constitutional republic to advance human flourishing in a free society. We form thoughtful leaders through a civic education that prizes careful study of the American story as well as wisdom for how to live a good life. While political polarization threatens American civic life, at Civitas we advance the virtues of civil discourse. We organize our work around the three pillars of the American political tradition: liberty, constitutionalism, and property. We value reasoned deliberation, intellectual curiosity, and free speech.

We offer two undergraduate fellowships. The Summer Honors Symposium meets in August to explore the nature of friendship. The Society of Fellows meets throughout the academic year to examine the concept of liberty.

The Society of Fellows

Applications are now closed for the 2023-2024 Society of Fellows. The selection committee is reviewing applications.

Invitation

“Human liberty,” Tocqueville wrote, is “the source of all moral greatness.” When we think, speak, and act “without constraints, under the sole government of God and the laws,” we cultivate our humanity and discover what it truly means, and what it truly takes, to be happy. In the spirit of these reflections, still timely for us, the Civitas Institute introduces the Society of Fellows, an undergraduate fellowship program dedicated to the study of liberty and its moral conditions.

A key dimension of liberty is freedom of speech. Nowhere is the freedom to think, write, and speak more critical to uphold than in the university, an institution which helps to shape the minds of young adults and future citizens. A university’s most essential function in a democracy is to equip students with the intellectual resources to become decent, productive, and independent-minded members of society. To the degree that the university fails to fulfill its mission, democracy suffers because the level of government in a democracy, by its nature, reflects the level of its citizens. The genuine search for truth in our times, in the humanities as well as in public policy, requires a culture of free speech.

How can we protect freedom of speech? Tocqueville invites “those who see freedom of the mind as a holy thing” to join him in rejecting not just the old kind of intellectual despotism—that of unaccountable elites who prohibit certain books or speeches, but also the kind characteristic of democratic times. This modern kind of intellectual despotism is enforced not by elites at the level of law but by the majority at the level of civil society. It is a kind of despotism that, as Tocqueville knew, “leaves the body alone and goes right to the soul.” It constricts thought within narrow bounds imposed by public opinion. Its enforcement mechanism is the implicit threat of social ostracism. The result is a loss of clarity in our thought and of frankness in our speech. Vigorous discussion and independence of mind cannot survive, let alone flourish, in such an environment.

The Society of Fellows upholds the sacred right of freedom of the mind by gathering a cohort of students who, whatever their political opinions, remain steadfast friends of freedom of speech. Through the Society of Fellows, the Civitas Institute aims to model a culture of intellectual freedom.

Program

Every sequence of the fellowship will run for one academic year. Each year, a cohort of 20 students will participate in the following exclusive programs—at no cost to students:

Inaugural Conference (August 25-26) – The fellowship kicks off with an early semester conference at Camp Lucy, a Hill Country luxury resort known for its heritage buildings. The conference features invited scholars and public intellectuals who discuss the problems and prospects of liberal democracy today.

Speaker Receptions (throughout Fall and Spring semesters) – Students who join the Society of Fellows will have the opportunity to attend private receptions for leading scholars and policymakers who are invited contributors to the Civitas Institute’s speaker series, a series of public lectures at UT. Students can engage with scholars and policymakers in a setting conducive to genuine conversation.

Book and Film Club (throughout Fall and Spring semesters) – Students who join the Society of Fellows will have the opportunity to meet once or twice a month to discuss a short text on the theme of liberty and its moral conditions. Such texts will be selected from the works of Locke, Madison, Hamilton, de Staël, Constant, Tocqueville, Mill, Acton, Röpke, Arendt, and Nisbet, among others. The club will occasionally screen films on related themes. The Society of Fellows hosts Book and Film Club sessions at the Littlefield Home, a Victorian mansion, Austin landmark, and home to the Civitas Institute.

Tocqueville in Paris (May 16-26): This study-abroad program presents an extraordinary opportunity for students to spend ten days studying Tocqueville and the French liberal tradition in the famed City of Light, Paris. In this unique and beautiful setting, students will have the opportunity to participate in daily seminars on these themes, attend group dinners, visit historic neighborhoods and buildings, and gaze at some of the greatest art in the Western tradition, among other activities.

Financial Award

Each member of the Society of Fellows will receive a financial award. This award, it should be noted, will be dispersed in such a way as to help defray a student’s Cost of Attendance. If the student has student debt, it will be applied to the debt first before it is disbursed to the student.

As indicated above, membership in the Society of Fellows costs nothing to students. There are no membership dues, and all dinners, accommodations, and travel will be covered by the Civitas Institute.

Requirements

Applications are now closed for the 2023-2024 Society of Fellows. The selection committee is reviewing applications.

To apply: You must be a UT undergraduate student who will still be an undergraduate student next Fall, when the Society of Fellows 2023-2024 academic year begins.

To remain in the Society of Fellows once admitted: You must attend the inaugural conference, at least one speaker reception per semester, and the trip to the Château de Tocqueville. In addition, you must invest reasonable participation in Civitas’s regular speaker series.

Please address inquiries to:

Antonio Sosa
Associate Director
Civitas Institute
University of Texas at Austin

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

The University of Texas at Austin, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.

Summer Honors Symposium

Invitation

The Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin invites UT-Austin undergraduate students to apply for the Civitas Summer Honors Symposium. The event will take place at the Omni Barton Creek Resort & Spa, from Thursday, August 10 to Saturday, August 12, 2023. All expenses are covered by the Civitas Institute.

The Summer Honors Symposium brings together a community of students and prominent scholars to discuss a theme relevant to the political, ethical, or economic dimension of human flourishing. The theme of this year’s symposium is friendship and its philosophic foundations.

Fellows will spend three leisurely days discussing readings on friendship as understood in three distinct intellectual traditions—classic, Christian, and modern—under the guidance of Dr. Daniel Bonevac and Dr. J. Budziszewski. The purpose of the program is to help students acquire the intellectual perspective that will enable them to reflect on the place and even possibility of friendship in modern times. These readings and conversations are also intended to help students think about the languishing state of civic friendship in the United States and the conditions for its renewal.

Requirements to Apply

You must be a UT undergraduate student at the time of your application. Submit your application here.

Application and admission decisions will be made on a rolling basis until full.

Please address inquiries to:

Antonio Sosa
Associate Director
Civitas Institute
University of Texas at Austin
Email: antonio.sosa@austin.utexas.edu