The January 2022 program is open only to students that had previously been accepted to participate in the Summer 2020 or Summer 2021 programs that were cancelled due to the pandemic.  

 

This study-abroad course is a special version of a class, Foundations of American Constitutionalism, offered by UVU as part of the Political Science program and the Constitutional Studies minor. It takes place at Pembroke College, Oxford University, because that is the headquarters of the Quill Project. The Quill Project has built a digital platform that models constitutional negotiations, beginning with the U,S. Constitutional Convention of 1787. UVU, working through the Center for Constitutional Studies, has a special relationship with the Quill Project, in which a special team of student workers help Dr. Nicholas Cole, the creator of the platform, to model constitutional conventions. The students who enroll in this course will not themselves engage in that construction of the platform, but will learn how it allows one to better study the proceedings of 1787.

As with the version of Foundations that is taught at UVU, the academic goals of this course are to give students greater understanding of the American Founding, and more specifically, of the historical, social and intellectual roots of American's constitutionalism. A key aspect of this set of goals is to train students In the study of original documents, such as the Constitution itself, the convention debates, and The Federalist Papers. Topics highlighted include the ratification debates, the Great Compromise concerning representation, the structure of each of the three branches, how the convention dealt with the issue of slavery, and how democratic the U.S, Constitution was as originally framed, A goal special to this course is to improve essay-writing and research skills through their participation In the unique Oxford tutorial system of essay preparation and presentation, and their use of the world-famous Bodleian library.

In our judgment, American students stand to learn more about their own constitutionalism if they are given an opportunity to see how it Is the object of rigorous study by a non-American scholar like Dr. Cole. He will co-teach the class, and the program will additionally provide students with exposure to the somewhat different practice of higher education in the United Kingdom. Finally, our program will include cultural enrichment activities, such as a visit to the House of Parliament, that will heighten student thinking about American constitutionalism in comparative context.

Program Sites:

• Oxford, UK