Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Dr. Ryan Owens, Professor FSU

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Dr. Ryan Owens, Professor FSU · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And here we go five past the hour. It is
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Thursday on the Morning Show with Preston Scott. Could to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: be with you Show five four hundred and thirty six.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: But who's counting, right? I mean, no one's counting, okay
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: other than me. Mosey's over there in Studio one. I
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  Speaker 1: am here in Studio one B, and I cannot wait
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  Speaker 1: to have this discussion. Doctor Ryan Owens is a professor
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  Speaker 1: at Florida State University's director of the Florida Institute of
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Governance and Civics, and he is my guest in studio.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: How are you, sir?
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  Speaker 2: Hey, I'm doing good. Good Thursday to you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I have to start this by asking what prompted
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: you to reach out and engage with the show. Write
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: me a note.
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  Speaker 3: I love what you're doing, and I love what I'm doing,
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  Speaker 3: and I want people who love what both of us
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  Speaker 3: are doing to hear about it. So you know, I
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  Speaker 3: am the director of the Institute for Governance and Civics.
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  Speaker 3: We're trying to resurrect an appreciation for liberty on college campuses,
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  Speaker 3: particularly here at FSU. Came down here from Wisconsin about
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  Speaker 3: a year ago to direct this thing and.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Moment just a moment there, please, just a moment to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: acknowledge the Green and Gold where you do hold season tickets? Oh?
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, tell me that he's not my new
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: best friend in the world.
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  Speaker 2: Gold Packers.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, go pack gold pack goal.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, you slip into that real easy, can't you.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, yeah, I can do it in a minute.
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  Speaker 1: How'd you end up at Florida State University?
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  Speaker 3: This position opened up and uh, and it was really
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  Speaker 3: appealing to me. I believe pretty strongly in what we're doing.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but I do think
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  Speaker 3: that the future of the country is really at issue.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: It's at risk right now.
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  Speaker 3: If we have people who don't understand how, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the American government works their rules of citizens, what does
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  Speaker 3: it mean to be a citizen, We're going to have
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  Speaker 3: a heck of a problem on our hands in the future.
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  Speaker 3: We're starting to see that right now. And so for me,
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  Speaker 3: the ability to come down and take this thing over
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  Speaker 3: like just started up from the ground up. We are
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  Speaker 3: literally building this from scratch, and you know, there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of flexibility there and an opportunity to build a
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  Speaker 3: vision and that and that's what we want to do.
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  Speaker 2: We're here to help.
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  Speaker 3: We're here to promote civic literacy, civic awareness, civic thought
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  Speaker 3: wherever we can.
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  Speaker 1: When you were brought into Florida State, the hiring process
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  Speaker 1: is going on. What were you told about the goals
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  Speaker 1: the purpose of this department?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well what I was told basically was, here's the
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  Speaker 3: statutory mission that we have, right, and there's six or
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  Speaker 3: seven bullet points within that statute, and and they're general,
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  Speaker 3: they all kind of point towards the same thing. And
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  Speaker 3: you know, the direction that I had was lean into this,
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  Speaker 3: make your vision fit with what we what we want
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  Speaker 3: to do here, And so I had I don't want
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  Speaker 3: to say cart blanche, that's not right, but I had
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  Speaker 3: a lot of flexibility to kind of bring in my expertise.
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  Speaker 3: My background is in law and politics. I'm an empirical
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  Speaker 3: social scientist, but I also understand that you can run
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  Speaker 3: as many statistical models as possible, but if they're not
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  Speaker 3: answering important normative questions, they're So what we're trying to
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  Speaker 3: do here is just a number of things. I'm building
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  Speaker 3: a Civics degree program at FSU that is part social science,
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  Speaker 3: part civic thought, so that we teach people what it
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  Speaker 3: means to be an American, but then give them the
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  Speaker 3: tools to go out on the job market later to
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  Speaker 3: get good jobs and make an impact in their community.
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  Speaker 3: We created a First Amendment Law Clinic at the College
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  Speaker 3: of Law so that students can learn the importance of
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  Speaker 3: free speech, conscience, liberty, and learn how to defend them.
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  Speaker 1: What was the reception as you got for first How
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  Speaker 1: long has this process been underway?
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  Speaker 2: One year? One year as you began.
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  Speaker 1: Obviously we've seen a lot of tumult on college and
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  Speaker 1: university campuses across the country. What kind of reception did
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  Speaker 1: you get at Florida State.
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  Speaker 3: It's been positive. I've been pleased with the reception that
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  Speaker 3: we've had from leadership, and there are a lot of
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  Speaker 3: people on campus who recognize the value of intellectual diversity
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  Speaker 3: and understand that student success is tied to an understanding
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  Speaker 3: of American civics and an ability to comprehend other people's
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  Speaker 3: viewpoints and have some political tolerance. So you know, it's
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  Speaker 3: not without its obstacles, to be sure, in any organization
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  Speaker 3: is going to be that way. But I am very
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  Speaker 3: very supportive of what we've got going on here and
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  Speaker 3: in the relationship that we have with leadership on campus.
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  Speaker 1: Because generally speaking, broadly speaking, we paint with a big
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  Speaker 1: brush around here. Yeah, yeah, there are always exceptions. Broadly speaking,
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  Speaker 1: diversity means as long as you agree.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we see that sort of alarmingly in the data,
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  Speaker 3: particularly among the eighteen to twenty four or twenty nine
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  Speaker 3: year olds. We just we one of the things that
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  Speaker 3: we do at the IGC as well as you know,
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  Speaker 3: teaching and the clinic and things like that, is we
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  Speaker 3: do a lot of polling, and we've conducted a handful
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  Speaker 3: of polls so far in our existence, and the data
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  Speaker 3: are somewhat frightening. Among eighteen to twenty four or twenty
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  Speaker 3: nine year olds. There is a real strong creeping intolerance
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  Speaker 3: that exists, such that we're seeing data now where younger
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  Speaker 3: people are saying they're not even willing to date people
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  Speaker 3: who have opposing political views, and in fact, some of
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  Speaker 3: the data show that that sort of younger progressives are
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  Speaker 3: over two times more likely to date an ex felon
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  Speaker 3: than they are to date a conservative.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Just a moment of silence here for decency, thank you.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, we see some similar data on
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  Speaker 3: the other side of the spectrum.
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  Speaker 2: Two it's not all just the left.
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  Speaker 3: Of course, data are a little bit more troublesome on
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  Speaker 3: that side of the spectrum. So, you know, what are
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  Speaker 3: we going to do in this country in the future.
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  Speaker 3: If we're only dating, marrying, procreating with people who believe
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  Speaker 3: like we do, then we're raising kids who only believe
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  Speaker 3: what we do. Pretty soon the polarization that we see,
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  Speaker 3: I mean, is going to be one heck of a problem.
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  Speaker 1: Back with doctor Ryan Owen's professor Florida State University, we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about the Institute of Governance and Civics. How does
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  Speaker 1: how does this play out day to day on campus?
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  Speaker 2: It's a lot of work. Yeah, Yeah, it's a lot
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  Speaker 2: of work.
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  Speaker 3: But we're doing the Lord's work, as they say, right,
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  Speaker 3: So what we're doing a handful of things. We are
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  Speaker 3: helping to hire faculty and work with existing departments to
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  Speaker 3: place faculty in those units. We are working to create
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  Speaker 3: a degree program that I'm really really excited about. I
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  Speaker 3: think it's going to do some wonderful things. We bring
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  Speaker 3: in speakers and we put on programs regularly. We've got
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  Speaker 3: some fantastic speakers coming up and be happy to talk
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  Speaker 3: about them here in a bit.
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  Speaker 2: But we're doing all of that.
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  Speaker 3: We do a lot of polling, data analysis, working with students.
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  Speaker 3: We've got book clubs for undergraduate students. We're really firing
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  Speaker 3: on multiple cellulars.
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  Speaker 1: So does a student sign up for specific courses? Do
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  Speaker 1: they take coursework and then affiliate with the institute? How
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  Speaker 1: does that work?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so the way the program, the degree program will work.
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  Speaker 3: We are in the process right now of getting that
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  Speaker 3: up and running and seeking the approvals from the State
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  Speaker 3: University System, the Florida bog and others, so that should
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  Speaker 3: be ready to rock and roll in fall of twenty
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  Speaker 3: twenty six. So students will come and they just they
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  Speaker 3: can commit to this as a major, just like they
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  Speaker 3: would any other major on campus. We're also working to
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  Speaker 3: get some certificate programs and things like that. So once
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  Speaker 3: students get on campus, we will advertise this program to them.
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  Speaker 3: We'll advertise this to them as they're applying, so that
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  Speaker 3: people know what we're doing, what we're up to. Parents
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  Speaker 3: will feel comfortable, you know, sending their kids to come
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  Speaker 3: work with us. We also have you know, the book
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  Speaker 3: clubs and things like that, so students will see advertisements
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  Speaker 3: for what we're doing, they can join us. They can
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  Speaker 3: see the flyer, come to our website, which is IGC
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  Speaker 3: dot FSU dot edu. They can learn more about us
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  Speaker 3: that way. We're on socials a lot, so there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of information that they can obtain, and we're reaching
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  Speaker 3: out to them for all of these matters.
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  Speaker 1: Are you teaching courses specifically yourself?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got a couple of courses. My background is
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  Speaker 3: in law and politics. I was a practicing lawyer for
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: a couple of years and realized that that wasn't what
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to do, so I teach classes on the
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  Speaker 3: United States Supreme Court. I do a class every year
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  Speaker 3: on the Supreme Court's current term, which is really cool.
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  Speaker 3: Students love it. It's a hands on course. We take
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  Speaker 3: six or seven cases currently before the US Supreme Court.
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  Speaker 3: We read the briefs, we listen to oral arguments. The
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  Speaker 3: very last class of the semester, we go to the
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  Speaker 3: Florida Supreme Court. We do mock oral arguments in there.
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  Speaker 3: It's a great class. Students learn what it means to
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  Speaker 3: argue both sides of the positions, and they get some
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  Speaker 3: writing skills, they get some oral presentation skills.
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  Speaker 2: It's a fun course.
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  Speaker 1: What's the process look like time wise for you in
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  Speaker 1: this evolution. I mean, in our last segment, we'll spend
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  Speaker 1: some time on the speakers that are coming in and
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  Speaker 1: some things that people might want to gravitate to learn
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  Speaker 1: more about, but talk us through the logistics of what
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  Speaker 1: you're doing.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, my vision, if we just want to back
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  Speaker 3: this up, I mean, my vision for this thing is
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  Speaker 3: for us to be the nation's premier policy institute in
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  Speaker 3: creating the next generation of effective citizens and responsible leaders.
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  Speaker 3: And the way that we do this structurally is we
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  Speaker 3: focus on four pillars of liberty. We're focused on constitutional liberty,
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  Speaker 3: economic liberty, conscience liberty, and educational liberty.
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  Speaker 2: So I talked about that degree program.
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  Speaker 3: Students come in, they'll take a course set of courses,
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  Speaker 3: and then they can concentrate in one of these four areas.
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  Speaker 3: We've got four branch heads who are They report to
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  Speaker 3: me and they are pursuing those goals in each of
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  Speaker 3: those four pillars of liberty. The speakers that we bring
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  Speaker 3: in they fit within that. So our goal is that
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  Speaker 3: within five years or so, we want the First Amendment
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  Speaker 3: Law Clinic to have some cases at the Supreme Court.
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  Speaker 3: We want to have a number of students in the
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  Speaker 3: program and lots of speakers, and finally, we want to
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  Speaker 3: become the nation's data hub for all things civic awareness
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  Speaker 3: and civic related.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty two past the hour. We're going to stay as
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  Speaker 1: long as you can here doctor Ryan Owens, and this
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  Speaker 1: will likely be the first to many visits over the
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  Speaker 1: coming years. He is Professor FSU, Director of the Florida
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  Speaker 1: Institute of Governance and Civics. You talked about the four
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  Speaker 1: pillars in the previous segment. I want to talk about conscience.
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  Speaker 1: How do you create a pillar around something that is
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  Speaker 1: so intrinsically personal.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great question.
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  Speaker 3: People have to understand this is intimately attached to liberty.
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  Speaker 3: If you don't have the freedom to worship as you
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  Speaker 3: see fit, I mean that is one of the most,
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  Speaker 3: if not the most fundamental right that you have as
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  Speaker 3: a human being, is the right to worship and the
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  Speaker 3: right to your thoughts and expression. And so what we
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  Speaker 3: want to do is under make sure that students understand
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  Speaker 3: that this does come to political tolerance and intolerance. It
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  Speaker 3: comes to just a general awareness of what those around
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  Speaker 3: you are doing. If you respect the individual, you have
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: to respect the individual's right to worship. As he or
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  Speaker 3: she sees fit. And so with the First Amendment Law Clinic,
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  Speaker 3: the courses that we're requiring on the First Amendment, this
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  Speaker 3: is going to teach students what the law is today
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  Speaker 3: on the First Amendment. But more importantly, it's going to
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: teach them the why, not just the what, but the why.
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  Speaker 3: Why do we value this stuff?
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  Speaker 2: Right?
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  Speaker 3: And so this comes back to some very very foundational
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: principles about your relationship in the state of nature. If
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: you will, right, without any government, what would exist, Well,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: your relationship with God would still exist, and so no
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  Speaker 3: government can come in and.
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  Speaker 2: Intrude on that.
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  Speaker 3: So I think teaching students the what about the doctrine
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  Speaker 3: why it exists? Those two things together are very very useful.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Does it become somewhat remedial then some? In fact, if
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: you look at all of these four pillars, there has
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to be a degree of remedial education infused in all
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  Speaker 1: of them because so much of this is lacking, even
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  Speaker 1: in Florida in our public education system K twelve.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely some of that, There's no doubt about it.
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  Speaker 3: But I think you know, repetition is the best form of.
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  Speaker 2: Learning, absolutely, So we want to hit people over.
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  Speaker 3: The head theoretically with this stuff, So remind them constantly
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: why we're doing this?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Why? Why? Why? Why?
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  Speaker 3: So Yeah, there is a bit of a remediality to it,
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  Speaker 3: but I think that Repid is going to be important.
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  Speaker 2: Students will see it, they'll hear it, they'll understand it.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things that your organization is doing is
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  Speaker 1: bringing speakers in. The purpose of those speakers is to
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  Speaker 1: simply expose the student body that wants to come and
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: listen the public at large. Who are you targeting.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, lots of people, really really happy what we had
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: last year. This year coming up, we've got some fantastic people.
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  Speaker 3: So on September seventeenth, we've got Rich Lowry, who's the
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: editor in chief of National Review.
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  Speaker 2: He's going to come in.
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  Speaker 3: He's going to talk about the Constitution and the meaning
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: of America. October one, we've got somebody coming in to
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: talk about Thomas Jefferson and the university and what he
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: believed the proper role of the university was. You know,
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: some may agree, some may disagree with that, but that's fine.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: That's kind of the point. Right October third, we're going
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: to do a fantastic Supreme Court preview of the upcoming
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: cases at the US Supreme Court.
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  Speaker 2: That'll be at the law School.
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: We've got an event on October twenty fourth about the
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Founders and religion and what the Founders thought about religion,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: how they exercised it, things of that nature. November fourth,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: we've got a guy, Daniel di Martino's coming in to
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: talk about how socialism destroyed Venezuela. Somebody from Venezuela talking about,
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: you know, this increased rule of government in the economy.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: No way, socialism's bad.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, many people are saying, come on, many people
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: are saying. November tenth, we're going to celebrate the Marine's birthday,
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: so that'll be interesting. And November eighteenth, we've got Glenn Lowry,
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: the economist, coming up to talk about the case for
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Black American patriotism. So, as far as I'm concerned, the
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: sun is rising on Florida State University, it truly is.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: We've got some fantastic people coming in and I know
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: I went through a lot of speakers there and dates.
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  Speaker 3: Listeners can go to our website FSU dot IGC dot
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: FSU dot edu to learn more about those dates, how
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: to register the times. But you know, we are doing
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: a lot of stuff. We're proud of what we're doing.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: We're proud to be part of FSU. And I can't
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: tell you how excited I am to just write this ship.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I asked about the targeting is this Are these speaking
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: events strictly for students and faculty members, those on campus
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that want to listen and participate, or is it open
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: to the community who can come?
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Well, I'll pull out my Wisconsin packer accent. Oh no,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: oh no, it's for everybody. Uh, open you serve and pop? Yeah,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: we got some soda.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: We're gonna let it's open to the public.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: It's open. I do have listeners in Wisconsin.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: You should know. God bless them. Yeah, God bless them. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So it'll be open to the community. Okay, And these
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: are all free events, right. We do not charge for
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: our events because, dog on it. We believe in liberty
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: so much that we're willing to pay the cost.
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  Speaker 2: There's goople are exposed to it.
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  Speaker 1: Well done, sir, well done.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 1: This is a starting point for us to get to
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: know each other a little bit. And Uh, any polling,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: you do anything you want to push out, you'll you'll
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: have a place here anytime you want it.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Well, love it, appreciate it. Thank you so much,