Preparation for Public Lives
and Scholarship Competitions
A university education in public analysis, advocacy, and action helps students prepare for the challenges of going public. It also readies undergraduates for the pursuit of major scholarships. Such public competitions test students for the talents tapped by public life, and they lead into additional studies that refine these talents along with more specifically academic skills. College educations seldom ready individuals for skillful, virtuous participation in public life. Whether the setting is local, national, or global, the need is for a more fully “public education.” This is a practical education in the argument, conversation, judgment, and collaboration crucial for civic responsibilities. It is the purpose of the Aces Program in Analysis, Advocacy, And Action.
Aces arises from a distinctive take on education for public action, and it features four formal components. Three are Honors Seminars, while the fourth is a personal exercise in inquiry on the frontiers of public knowledge. To learn more about the program’s philosophy or any of its components, simply click below on the relevant name:
The seminars are forums for learning methods of analysis, modes of communication, and models of teamwork. They anchor exercises in conducting conversations, tracking issues, specifying responses, testing arguments, persuading audiences, and engaging ethics. Each seminar has a single leader then taps an ample network of scholars and activists. These enrich the meetings and tutor students on personal projects that feed directly into their individual inquiries, proposals, applications, and the like. Each Aces seminar and research experience is mentored by members of the Honors Faculty and the Honors Professional Staff.
The principal purpose of Aces is to cultivate capacities for public leadership. Yet this jibes with what it takes of late to win scholarships of great renown. Major national and international competitions for scholarships increasingly emphasize student experiences in public analysis, advocacy, and action. This holds for prestigious awards that include the Carnegie, Churchill, Cooke, Fulbright, Gates-Cambridge, Goldwater, Humanity in Action, Luce, Marshall, Mitchell, Pickering, Rhodes, Rotary, Scoville, Truman, and the Udall Scholarships. It even holds for more specifically academic opportunities such as the Beinecke, Borg, Javits, and NSF Fellowships. From humanities and sciences to arts and professions, all such scholarship programs want their awards to benefit more than the immediate recipients by having those students prepared to “go public,” practicing exactly the skills developed by Aces.
The Aces Program draws on Iowa’s top-rated programs in debate, writing, mock trial, rhetorical analysis of argument, and multimedia studies of political communication. These include the A. Craig Baird Debate Forum, the Iowa Writing Center, the Honors Writing Fellows Program, the Honors Editing Fellows Program, the Honors Mock Trial Team, the Rhetoric Department, the Project on Rhetoric of Inquiry, the Iowa Policy Research Organization sustained by Political Science and Honors, as well as Iowa’s notable concentration of expertise in Political Communication. All these initiatives contribute directly to the Aces Program.
Aces participation is by invitation only. Invitations respond to student records of performance in academic, political, and service settings. Selection typically targets a student’s first or second year of study in Honors at Iowa. Preference goes to students with a clear intention to complete the program, and that earns an Honors Commendation for Analysis, Advocacy, and Action.