LOGAN — Utah State University is redefining how civics and the general education curriculum will be taught, thanks to some help from the legislature and a new law that went into effect May 7.
Depending on who you ask, the new law overhauling the general education curriculum at Utah State University is an “attack on higher education” or “the most important bill” of the entire legislative session.
Back in March, Utah Governor Spencer Cox called it (S.B. 334), and another high school civic education bill (H.B. 381), “two of the most important bills of the 2025 legislative session.”
S.B. 334, Center For Civics Excellence at Utah State University, will redesign general education requirements to focus more on the principles of classic liberal education and the “great books” with an emphasis on Western civilization and the rise of Christianity. It will also change at least three existing required courses at USU.
“I’m thrilled Utah State University is taking the lead to pilot a redesign of general education through the new center for civics excellence,” Cox said at the bill signing. “This center will be tasked with building out a general education curriculum focused on viewpoint diversity, civil discourse and helping our students develop the analytical skills necessary to contribute in the public square. This curriculum will be a model for all our public institutions in Utah and nationally.”
Proponents of the law, which was inspired by a national legislative-led curriculum movement, are applauding the move and saying Utah is taking the lead nationwide in the beginnings of a major reform of America’s higher education system.
However, at least seven professors at Utah State University have publicly stated opposition to the law and the rushed means by which it came to fruition during the final days of the 2025 Legislative session with seemingly no prior faculty input.
USU English Department chair and professor Shane Graham, who has taught at USU for 20 years, says the law “is an attack on higher education.”
He says the biggest concern for some faculty in the English Department is that writing studies will be lost or deemphasized. Two of the three classes that will be replaced with the new curriculum are English 1010 and English 2010 courses, he says. The third is a breadth humanities class that will be replaced by a “great books” or American institutions course.
“I fear that students are going to suffer from that,” Graham said.
S.B. 334 bill sponsor Sen. John D. Johnson, R-North Ogden, argues his bill is an attempt to preserve the humanities that have drifted from a focus of what the purpose is.
“People say it is an attack, I say no, it is a rescue mission,” he said, adding that they want to get back to basic truths. “We fund higher ed because we want to have a more informed electorate.”
Johnson says the law will combine humanities and civic courses with writing.
Matt Sanders, a professor of Communication Studies at USU, who also co-chairs the general education committee, agrees with Gov. Cox and Sen. Johnson that this bill is important, but he concedes with Graham’s perspective that it was rushed.
“That’s a valid critique; it went too fast,” Sanders said. But added, “I’m very excited about the possibility of what this can bring.”
He says the urgency to make the law didn’t come from USU, but rather the Utah State Legislature.
He says all indicators showed this was something the legislature was planning to implement regardless, so USU administration decided to “get at the table and help frame this legislation.”
Johnson floated a similar bill (S.B. 226 School of General Education Act) last year, except it was to make the University of Utah the pilot school. That 2024 bill didn’t advance to the floor, because Johnson says it was “very prescriptive.”
“I think it was the right idea, but the wrong approach,” Johnson said.
So he attempted the bill again during the 2025 session after former USU President Elizabeth Cantwell contacted Johnson and suggested he talk with USU Associate Vice Provost for General Education Harrison Kleiner.
“She felt like he would make some really great contributions to what we are trying to do,” Johnson said.
He added that a national group was promoting a national curriculum movement, but a local perspective was necessary. He said Kleiner helped him accomplish “a lot of what I wanted to do and still leave faculty in charge of it.”
Johnson says the two worked together to make improvements on last year’s bill, which included a little more leeway in the language of the prior bill.
“Without his engagement the bill would have been more like the other one,” Johnson said.
Graham says he takes issue with the fact USU presented the bill to the legislature to insinuate it had full faculty support.
“The impression was strongly given that USU’s faculty was on board with this, and we had not even heard about it,” Graham said.
While faculty wasn’t involved initially, they are now, Sanders says. During the final weeks of the spring semester Sanders said he co-chaired some visioning groups and engaged with 275 faculty members for a number of brainstorming sessions with faculty. There were at least 15, 1 ½ hour long brainstorming meetings that he says brought a lot of ideas and a plan to have smaller faculty groups this summer to help as they work on developing the curriculum, which is scheduled to begin in fall 2026, but won’t be finished then. It will begin rolling out in phases at that time.
Sanders says the law is “quite a compromise from where it started” and “preserves faculty governance.”
Graham isn’t convinced.
“Color me skeptical of any claim that faculty expertise is now suddenly going to be respected and incorporated when it was just railroaded over through this whole process,” Graham said.
He went on to say he is still perplexed why the bill was expedited to be implemented this year, adding that most curriculum changes at a university are typically a four-to-five year process, but faculty is now tasked with reinventing an entire university curriculum over a summer.
“This does not feel like any of this has been done in good faith,” he said.
Sanders says it is too soon to say exactly what courses will get removed, some might be merged with others. That will be up to the faculty, who will be building the curriculum.
The plan is to have USU pilot the program and if it goes well, use it as a model and expand it to other state higher education institutions.
But Utah Higher Education Commissioner Geoff Landward recently suggested in a public meeting after the bill was signed into law that it might not work across the statewide system.
The Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) told Cache Valley Daily that new pilot program does not require approval from any other body. In 2029, USU will present a report to the Board of Higher Education and to members of the state legislature reporting how their program is doing. At that point, the board has the authority to order changes to the Gen Ed program.
“The Chief Academic Officer’s office in USHE acts on behalf of the Board in making sure that any changes Utah State University makes to their Gen Ed curriculum are compliant with Board policy so that all students who transfer in and out of USU to another USHE institution are held harmless—their Gen Ed credits earned count the same from one institutions to another,” wrote a spokesperson with USHE. “USU is free to make changes to their Gen Ed program as long as it does not fall outside of USHE Board policy.”
While it is meant to be a model for all higher education in Utah, Sanders says they don’t assume it will work for every school.
He said there is still a lot they don’t know and will figure it out as they go.
“We will adapt and whatever blows up in our face – we will sweep up and fix.”