When former Gov. Doug Ducey and the state Legislature directed Arizona State University to set up an academic department devoted to civic education almost a decade ago, Paul Carrese viewed the move as an unprecedented step toward expanding academic perspectives on campus.

Carrese was a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy when ASU officials recruited him to become the founding director of the department, which became the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL).

Although the program still faces criticism for its alleged conservative bias, prompted by its inception by GOP legislation and initial funding from the Charles G. Koch Foundation of two centers at ASU that merged to form SCETL, Carrese and other faculty and students have credited the school with filling a gap in civic education at the university level while helping to spawn a larger movement of programs teaching similar principles.

“There were centers … at other state universities, private universities, (and) public universities, but there was no separate academic department mandated and funded in this way,” said Carrese, who stepped down as director in 2023 but remains a professor at the school. “So they did an unprecedented thing, and I think the record shows they were right.”

Launched in 2017, the school merged ASU’s Center for the Study of Economic Liberty and its Center for Political Thought and Leadership, with courses emphasizing the country’s political and constitutional history, political philosophies, economic thought, capitalism and free markets.

Class discussions follow the socratic method of teaching where professors ask probing questions to facilitate conversations and challenge ideas. The school also launched its “Civil Discourse” project, a speaker series featuring guests from different sides of the intellectual and political spectrum to discuss a variety of topics ranging from ideological conformity on campus to race, justice and leadership in America.

“We don’t bring in just conservative, intellectually conservative, constitutionalist speakers,” Carrese said. “We bring in a range of speakers, left and right and center. I do think people who would be seen as conservative … have come to campus because we’re around. So that’s bringing some intellectual diversity to campus.”

Some have questioned whether the school has actually promoted intellectual diversity or if it’s only pushing a singular viewpoint.

In 2018, former ASU faculty member Matthew Garcia, who served as director of the university’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, wrote an op-ed published in The Washington Post that criticized the process that led to the creation of the school and developing a program that would serve as an “alternative” to similar departments while maintaining a conservative bias.

Carrese acknowledged that the criticism still exists, although it’s not as intense as it was when the school opened.

“I think there might be some residual presence of the view back from 2016, 2017 that … SCETL is not legitimate. It’s a political project. It’s only for conservative thinking, it’s not for healthy intellectual discourse,” he said.

Carrese pointed to increased bipartisan support from lawmakers throughout the years, crediting Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, with continuing funding for the school when she took office. The school has also continued to add degree programs and one of its courses, American Institutions, meets ASU’s general studies requirement.

In addition, several universities across the country have launched similar schools in recent years, including the University of Texas at Austin School of Civic Leadership and the University of Florida Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education.

“I think that it really addresses one of the greatest needs in our society today,” said SCETL student Hannah Falvey.

Falvey is set to graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, and received a certificate in philosophy, politics and economics. She credited SCETL with teaching her to respectfully debate and challenge ideas, which she says is a lost skill in society.

“I think if we don’t learn how to have these conversations again, what’s going to happen is … these questions won’t be asked and the conversations won’t be had,” she said.