Washington Center

09/28/2026

Professors Eric Hewett and Patrick Lee Miller make a stop at one of the Washington Center's spiritual homes, Mt. Vernon, on the way back from a conference in D.C. They'll soon be taking our students on field trips there!

09/25/2026

The Washington Center was well represented at OSU's Chase Center's outstanding 2026 Conference on Civic Thought. Dan Demetriou spoke on agonistic civil discourse, Josiah Lippincott gave a paper on AI and democracy, and Patrick Lee Miller delivered a paper on AI and statesmanship.

09/24/2026

In honor of Constitution Day, Patrick Lee Miller delivered a talk to faculty and students titled “The Real Constitution," which discussed the gap between the written and unwritten constitutions that govern American laws, policies, and political norms.

07/15/2026

Several recent news stories have characterized the Washington Center for Civics, Culture, and Statesmanship as a failure, pointing to low enrollment across our special topics courses this term. We want to address this directly.

The Center is in the earliest stage of a deliberate, multi-year process: hire faculty, design permanent courses, secure curricular approval, and only then build enrollment through normal course offerings. We hired our first faculty member in June. Our permanent courses have not yet been approved. Special topics courses, by design, do not appear in standard course searches and do not count toward a degree—both of which limit enrollment regardless of student interest.

This trajectory is consistent with the more than three dozen civics centers established at universities across the country, none of which has failed. We also want to correct recent mischaracterizations of our budget, addressed in full below.

Recent news coverage has criticized the Washington Center as expensive, partisan, and unpopular, citing low enrollment across its special topics course offerings as evidence of failure. In this response, the Center explains why current enrollment is consistent with the normal, deliberate sequence of

07/04/2026

Happy 250th Fourth of July! 🎆 Today we celebrate two and a half centuries of American independence — and reflect on what it takes to keep that legacy alive. In a special Independence Day missive, “Our Center, Our Revolution,” Patrick Lee Miller looks back to George Washington’s own model of civic virtue, Cincinnatus, and makes the case for why a return to truth-seeking in higher education is essential to America’s next chapter. Read the full essay here:

https://www.wcwvu.org/missives/our-center-our-revolution

Wishing you and your family a joyful, freedom-filled Fourth of July! 🇺🇸

This July 4th marks 250 years since independence, and a new chapter for civic education in West Virginia. Drawing on George Washington's own model, Cincinnatus, Patrick Lee Miller makes the case for why universities must return to the pursuit of truth, and how the Washington Center for Civics, Cultu

04/14/2026

The Washington Center for Civics, Culture, and Statesmanship is now accepting applications for eight Washington Scholarships, with awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000. Recipients will pursue a Minor in Statesmanship and engage with the Center's distinctive curriculum in American ideals and Western civilization. The application deadline is September 1, 2026. Learn more and apply at wcwvu.org/scholarships.

Washington Scholarships Applications due September 1, 2026 Apply Now AwardsEight scholarships will be awarded at three prize levels: First Prize$25,000 One Awarded Second Prize$10,000 Two Awarded Third Prize$5,000 Five Awarded OverviewThe Washington Center for Civics, Culture, and Statesmanship is p...

04/07/2026

Two weeks ago, Washington Center Director Patrick Lee Miller addressed the West Virginia University Student Government Association to introduce the Center's mission and invite student participation. Drawing on Plato's allegory of the cave, Dr. Miller outlined the Center's three-part mandate—the pursuit of truth through free inquiry, the study of American ideals, and the study of their roots in Western civilization—and explained how its curriculum of roughly two dozen courses is designed to equip students to engage these questions thoughtfully and without ideological constraint. The Washington Center, one of fourteen such civics centers established by state legislatures across the country, will begin offering courses this fall.

Washington Center Director Patrick Lee Miller addressed the West Virginia University Student Government Association to introduce the Center's mission and invite student participation. Drawing on Plato's allegory of the cave, Dr. Miller outlined the Center's three-part mandate—the pursuit of truth ...

02/20/2026

"I believe Nietzsche's account of our civilization's history is correct. I believe his diagnosis of our current crisis. I also believe his prognosis. He foretells a "great drama in a hundred acts reserved for Europe in the next two centuries, the most terrible, most questionable drama but perhaps also the one most rich in hope." He wrote that in 1887. In 2026 we are more than two-thirds of the way through the era he foresees. It has already included two world wars, totalitarian regimes, nuclear weapons, global superpowers, space travel, the internet, artificial intelligence, robotics, and genetic engineering. How did he think it will end?

"According to Nietzsche, there are only two options: the Last Man, or the Super Man. I have already described the Last Man, dosing out his poison, so who is the Super Man? It's hard for us to take this question seriously, burdened as we are by the images of comic books and the memories of Hitler's jack boots. But Nietzsche's redeemer wears neither a cape nor a sw****ka. He is the human being who no longer feels resentment over his impotence before time. He is free from the ascetic ideal that distracted us from our impotence. He is the human being who no longer feels the sting of its guilty conscience. To be precise, he is no longer a human being at all. The human being was nature's first foray into awareness of time. First attempt, first mistake. The Super Man gets it right. He is the first to live the eternal return of the same."

Dr. Patrick Lee Miller, “Why Am I Here?”

02/18/2026

Yesterday, Dr. Patrick Lee Miller, Professor of Philosophy, delivered his first talk as Director of the Washington Center for Civics, Culture, and Statesmanship at West Virginia University. In it, he answered the question, "Why Am I Here?" — tracing the arc of Western civilization from Socrates and Plato through Nietzsche and Foucault to ask what it means to pursue genuine wisdom in the modern age. Drawing on the Allegory of the Cave and Nietzsche's concept of the "ascetic ideal," Dr. Miller made the case for why institutions committed to honest inquiry and the Western intellectual tradition matter now more than ever. The full transcript is available at the link below.

The founding Director of the Washington Center explains himself ...