The University of Oklahoma Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing is the recipient of a $3.9 million grant from the Templeton Religion Trust to advance the “Self, Virtue and Public Life Project.” The grant will provide funding for new research projects, conferences, edited volumes and community outreach activities. The project is set to begin September 1, 2018, and conclude on August 31, 2021.

“The Institute is truly grateful to the Templeton Religion Trust for its support of this important project,” said Nancy Snow, director of the institute.

The research will include approximately 10 new research projects at $190,000 each; two conferences for grant awardees to present their work; two edited volumes in “the Virtues” series; two conferences for volume contributors to share ideas and interact; two volumes authored by Snow; and four postdoctoral students who will produce articles and share at conferences.

Community outreach activities funded by this grant include the “Civic Virtues Project,” which will integrate and study the effects of civic virtues education in courses taught at Norman High School, Norman North High School and Irving Middle School. A “Teachers’ Guide to Civic Virtue: Civility, Compassion and Fairness,” will be produced and made available on the project website.

Six two-day workshops in a series entitled, “Beyond Tolerance: Civic Virtues in Nonprofit Leadership,” is planned in collaboration with the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits, an organization that reaches 240 nonprofit leaders throughout the state of Oklahoma.

A high-profile speakers’ series entitled, “Faith and Civic Virtue in Public Life,” will include three speakers who will visit the OU campus to discuss the topic. Audiences impacted are academics and teachers, students, nonprofit leaders and the general public.

The Institute seeks to promote awareness and appreciation of the need for civic virtue in public life and to integrate discourse on the civic virtues into the vocabulary of Oklahomans.

For more information on this project, contact Nancy Snow, director of the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing, at nsnow@ou.edu.