Program

Research Programs: Summer Stipends

Period of Performance

5/1/2010 - 9/30/2010

Funding Totals

$6,000.00 (approved)
$6,000.00 (awarded)


The National University and Sustaining the Constitutional Order

FAIN: FT-57612-10

George Thomas
Claremont McKenna College (Claremont, CA 91711-5929)

"The National University and Sustaining the Constitutional Order," will offer the first in depth study of the efforts to establish a national university from a constitutional perspective. The national university was seen as a vital means to further constitute us as a people: creating an institution that was a necessary supplement to the formal institutions of government, it would help "constitute" the American mind in a manner that carried forward the constitutional enterprise. This project seeks to give us a more rounded understanding of modern constitutionalism, as it depends on fostering the mind-set of its citizens. In this, the debate over a national university speaks to the role of knowledge, education and a constitutional citizenry in sustaining the American constitutional order and gives us a more "civic" understanding of our Constitution, which is too often reduced to law enforced by the courts.



Media Coverage

Book Discussion on The Founders and the Idea of a National University (Media Coverage)
Publication: C-Span
Date: 8/8/2016
URL: http:/https://www.c-span.org/video/?407946-5/george-thomas-discusses-founders-idea-national-university

Educating Citizens (Review)
Author(s): Colleen Sheehan
Publication: Claremont Review of Books
Date: 5/12/2016
URL: http:/http://www.claremont.org/crb/article/educating-citizens/

The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind (Review)
Author(s): Murray Dry
Publication: American Political Thought
Date: 8/8/2016
URL: http:/http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/687405

George Washington’s Broken Dream of a National University (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Adam Harris
Publication: The Atlantic
Date: 9/21/2018
Abstract: The founders believed a federal institution focused on civic education could help unite a fractured country.
URL: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/founders-national-university/571003/



Associated Products

The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind (Book)
Title: The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind
Author: George Thomas
Abstract: This book examines the ideas of the founders with regard to establishing a national university and what those ideas say about their understanding of America. It offers the first study on the idea of a national university and how the founders understood it as an important feature in an educational system that would sustain the American experiment in democracy. Their ideas about education suggest that shaping the American mind is essential to the success of the Constitution and that this is something that future generations would need to continue to do.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http:/http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/early-republic-and-antebellum-history/founders-and-idea-national-university-constituting-american-mind
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9781107083431
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes