Cultivating Citizenship to Support Democracy

Citizenship, Institutions, and the Public

President Jonathan Holloway's 2023 Byrne Seminar for first-year students is designed to heighten understanding of the roles and responsibilities of citizenship and will feature conversations with distinguished leaders on critical questions related to citizenship.

Seminar Overview

We live in an era of extreme political polarization, increasing social instability, and declining faith in the nation’s institutions and the virtues of civil discourse. How might we, as individuals, chart a path out of this troubling state of affairs? What role can we play in confronting the accumulating challenges in our society? What should we reasonably expect of our institutions and what do these institutions owe us? What are our responsibilities to be good civic actors when we are confronted by a public discourse that appears uninterested in speaking to our common values?

President Holloway addresses these questions through a series of conversations with distinguished leaders from the corporate, political, nonprofit, media and faith communities during his fall 2023 Byrne Seminar, "Citizenship, Institutions, and the Public."

Seminar Guests and Videos

Rajiv Vinnakota

A pioneering social entrepreneur, Rajiv Vinnakota serves as president of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, leading its mission to cultivate the talent, ideas, and networks that develop lifelong, effective citizens. Watch an excerpt from President Holloway's conversation with Vinnakota below.

Watch Full Video

About the Byrne Seminar

Byrne Seminars are small, 1-credit course, available exclusively to first-year undergraduate students at Rutgers–New Brunswick. Offered through the Office of Undergraduate Education, these classes are taught by our world-renowned faculty who come from departments and professional schools across the university. Each unique seminar offers students the chance to experience the excitement of original research as faculty members share their curiosity, their intellectual passion, and their new ideas and fields of knowledge.