Utah lawmakers want to overhaul the general education curriculum at state colleges, starting with Utah State University.
Republican Sen. John Johnson, an emeritus professor at USU, described the current system as a smorgasbord “of disconnected courses” that students can choose from to fulfill certain requirements. Every Utah student has to fulfill these requirements to get a degree.
Johnson wants it to be more structured and “rooted in the foundational text and traditions of Western civilization.” That’s what he’s hoping to do with SB344.
“It is about ensuring that our students engage with the greatest ideas in human history,” Johnson said during a Senate floor debate on March 4. “Ideas that have shaped civilization, guided statesmen and inspired generations.”
“It ensures that Utah students will study the very same foundational texts that inform the American experiment in self-government,” he added.
The bill would set up a general education pilot program at USU.
The new Center for Civic Excellence would create a new 30-credit curriculum grounded in the mission of “engaging students in civil and rigorous intellectual inquiry, across ideological differences, with a commitment to intellectual freedom in the pursuit of truth.” It would include primary texts that represent “the best of what has been thought and said.”
The curriculum would require three, three-credit humanities courses that “engage with perennial questions about the human condition, the meaning of life, and the nature of social and moral lives.” Those classes would be rooted in primary texts mainly from Western Civilization, including ancient Greece, Israel, Rome and the rise of Christianity. There would also be one, three-credit course focused on American institutions.
The bill’s fiscal note estimates a cost of $551,100 in ongoing funding to establish the program. Legislative leaders included that in their final budget proposal.
Right now, general education courses are scattered across various departments and Johnson said that can make it hard to control. The proposed center would have control over the entire general education curriculum and faculty.
If the pilot is deemed successful by the Utah Board of Higher Education, the board could choose to replicate it across all of Utah’s public colleges.
This isn’t the first time Johnson has taken a stab at dramatically changing general education.
In 2024, he ran a controversial bill that would’ve created a new general education school at the University of Utah. The bill didn’t make it out of committee. This year, Johnson admitted the bill was “very prescriptive” and said he understood why colleges didn’t like it.
This time around, Johnson has the support of Harrison Kleiner, USU’s associate vice provost of general education. Kleiner said he liked that Johnson’s 2024 bill was focused on a “classically liberal education” and reached out to Johnson to work with him on the latest version.
“Passage of this bill will make Utah State University and the state of Utah national leaders in general education reform,” Kleiner said in a Feb. 26 Senate Education Committee hearing.
During a Senate floor debate, Democratic Sen. Karen Kwan, who is a professor at Salt Lake Community College, said she wanted data that shows college students don’t have an understanding of classic texts. She also worried that the bill was too narrow and prescriptive.
“[The bill] does not allow for our students to incorporate new ideas, and those ideas of Black scholars or those of other marginalized communities,” Kwan said.
Similarly, Democratic Sen. Kathleen Riebe thought the bill focused too much on the past. She said Johnson’s outline neglected sociology, psychology, the social determinants of health, as well as more modern history that can put historical texts in context. She said the historical documents Johnson listed “did not always help all of us in society.”
“When you look at the books that you are mentioning, I couldn't drive a car, I couldn't have a license, I couldn't have a credit card, I couldn't vote, I couldn't own land as a female,” Riebe said. “So I don't want to go back to pre-modernistic time.”
Johnson said his bill would give all students a “common foundation” and create a framework, but added colleges would still have flexibility to choose curriculum.
“This is not about nostalgia for the past,” he said. “It is about preparing students for the future by engaging with these texts, students will develop the ability to think critically, argue persuasively, and understand the world in a broader historical and philosophical context.”
The bill passed out of the Senate on a 25-to-4 vote with some Democrats voting against it. It now heads to the House.
