Please visit the catalog archive for details about 2022-23 degrees and programs.
View real-time listing of classes and sections offered.
NOTE: Individual course fees are subject to change. See your account summary in myUVU for accurate charges.
Surveys the philosophical and historical foundations of constitutionalism in America. Covers ancient, medieval, and modern political theorists' ideas about regimes and constitutions. Focuses on the English constitution, the American state constitutions, and the Articles of Confederation that the framers of the United States Constitution drew upon in creating the 1787 national constitution. Includes discussion of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. Analyzes how these foundations continue to shape American constitutional law today.
Engages students in an effort to understand the institutional logic that animates the American Constitution. Examines the structure of government established by the Constitution, focusing primarily on the two fundamental institutional features that characterize that structure: separation of powers and federalism.
Focuses on the content and enforcement of constitutionally protected civil rights and civil liberties in the United States. Begins with the foundational ideas that formed the content of the American tradition of civil liberties in the early republic and gave rise to reliance on judicial review as a guarantor of constitutional rights. Examines the constitutional disputes over equal protection, property rights, criminal due process, freedoms of speech, press, and association, religious liberty and other judicially created rights concerning privacy, marriage, and parental rights. Explores primary sources, both in the form of judicial opinions and non-judicial documents.
Explores core ancient and modern texts in political philosophy and theology that are foundational to the political thought of the American Founding. Helps students understand the American form of government in comparison with other regimes. Surveys American ideas within the history of political philosophy.
Engages students in an effort to understand the ideas and logic that animate constitutional interpretation in the American political system. Explores the major theories of jurisprudence in American law and their criticisms.
Examines the application of constitutional law to education, with special attention to the United States. Includes the scope and exercise of constitutional rights enjoyed by students, parents, teachers, and educational institutions as well as the constraints imposed by federalism, due process, disestablishment of religion, and other structural constitutional principles on education policy.
Surveys the philosophical and historical foundations of American democracy and equal citizenship. Covers key texts about democracy from ancient and modern republican writers, including theorists of democracy in America, like Publius, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, and observers of democracy in America like Alexis de Tocqueville. Focuses on the United States Constitution.
Surveys the philosophical and historical foundations of individual rights, limited government, and liberty in America. Covers key texts from the classical liberal tradition, including Roger Williams, John Locke, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Publius, George Washington, and John Taylor. Focuses on the Declaration of Independence.
Surveys the major figures and ideas in the development of early American political thought. Begins with the foundational underpinnings of the American regime and examines the ideas that divided the Union during the Civil War. Focuses on the ideas of major political actors and thinkers: both the historical context in which they wrote and the texts that they produced.
Surveys the major figures and ideas in the development of American political thought. Begins with the ideas that divided the Union during the Civil War, studies the political thought of the Gilded Age, continues through the Progressive Era and the New Deal, examines the influential political ideas of the postwar period, and finishes up at the present-day. Focuses on the ideas of major political actors and thinkers: both the historical context in which they wrote and the texts that they produced.
Surveys the development of the American political regime. Focuses on the major political ideas and institutions that have informed the thought and practice of American politics over the course of American history. Includes a study of the development of American constitutionalism, federalism, Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court.
Examines the origins and development of the institution known as the United States presidency. Begins by studying the creation of the presidency at the time of the American Founding, and then examines how the institution has evolved up to the present day.
Examines the origins and development of the United States Supreme Court. Begins by studying the creation of the Supreme Court at the time of the American Founding, and then examines how the institution has evolved up to the present day.
Examines the origins and development of political parties in the United States. Begins by studying the creation of parties at the time of the American Founding, and then examines how the party system has evolved up to the present day.
