In our latest addition to the Professions and Civic Culture series, University of Virginia professor and literary scholar Paul A. Cantor examines the relationship of the humanities to civic life today. Cantor argues that the academy, in abandoning the traditional defense of studying literature in higher education, has unwittingly undermined public support for the humanities. He urges his colleagues in the university to consider how they might reconnect with older traditions of general education, such as the Great Books.

It’s been a year since Columbia University re-established an on-campus Naval ROTC program. In the latest edition of Columbia’s The Blue and White, student Naomi Sharp gives a progress report. Thus far, she notes, the program has flown under the radar, attracting little attention, positive or negative, but “a quiet beginning to the program has its benefits.”

In our latest policy brief, Ashbrook Center fellow David Tucker and musician Nathan Tucker consider the place of music in our civic culture. The authors note how American civic music has changed over time, becoming less religious, less programmatic, and more sentimental. In describing the evolution of American music, they touch on a range of styles and genres, from jazz to the American musical to Aaron Copland’s civic music to the folk music of the Sixties to the gangster rap of Tupac Shakur.

In the Atlantic, Colin Daileda writes about the challenges the military faces in accessing minority officers—and how the return of big city ROTC can help. Daileda follows the progress of new ROTC units at schools affiliated with the City University of New York (CUNY) and notes how their success could lead to a more diverse officer corps.

In Philanthropy Magazine, Naomi Schaefer Riley writes about philanthropic efforts to strengthen civic learning in American schools. Riley highlights programs by the Gilder Lehrman Institute, the Bill of Rights Institute, and What So Proudly We Hail by AEI’s own Leon R. Kass and his wife Amy.

For our latest case study in the “Teaching Citizenship in Charter Schools” series, Richard Lee Colvin, an education journalist and author of Tilting the Windmills: School Reform, San Diego, and America’s Race to Reform Public Education (out this month from Harvard Education Press), profiles the César Chávez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy in Washington, DC. The mission of the charter network—which has four schools located in the nation’s capital and serves 1,4000 students, nearly all of whom are African Americans or Latinos from low-income families—is to “empower students by helping them both succeed in college and learn to use their knowledge of government, public policy, and effective advocacy techniques to become ‘civic leaders committed to bettering our communities, country, and world.’”

The U.S. Citizenship Test is a required step in the naturalization process. All U.S. citizenship applicants, with some exceptions, must pass the citizenship test before taking the Oath of Allegiance and officially becoming U.S. citizens. Do you have what it takes to be a citizen? Take the test after the jump.