ACRE Undergraduate Reading Groups
ACRE reading groups consist of weekly meetings lead by ACRE-affiliated UCA professors. Students may apply to both reading groups, but are only eligible to participate in one group per semester. Student who fully participate over the course of the program will be awarded a $400 Scholarship. Students who do not actively participate each week, are consistently tardy, or are absent without legitimate reason will be ineligible for the scholarship. Books, meals and materials are also provided at no charge.
Spring 2026 Reading Groups
“Wait, I Might be Wrong?”
Why do decent people become divided by political, moral, or legal issues—and how can society survive these divisions? This reading group explores two works in conversation: Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind and Jonathan Rauch’s Kindly Inquisitors. Haidt shows how morality “binds and blinds,” pulling us into teams and narratives that feel sacred, narrowing our ability to see the good in others or question our own assumptions. Rauch argues that a liberal society depends on the opposite impulse: the willingness to admit we might be wrong, to let criticism flow freely, and to “kill our hypotheses rather than each other.” Together, these books challenge us to understand why we believe what we believe, why we so often demonize the other side, and why free inquiry—sometimes messy, frequently offensive, and always essential—is the only reliable way to seek the truth. Join us as we explore how our moral instincts shape our viewpoints, and why protecting free inquiry and criticism is essential in a world where it’s easy to take offense and hard to change our minds.
This reading group is facilitated by Dr. Jacob Held and will meet on Wednesday evenings from 5:30 – 7:30 pm, beginning January 28, 2026.
“The American Experiment: 250 Years of Ideas on Liberty & Government”
In honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s founding, this reading group will be focusing on the ideas of our nation’s founders and what they say about the role of government in a free society. Participants will read and discuss original writings from the time, as well as classic works by scholars such as Adam Smith, John Locke, J.S. Mill, and Karl Marx and more contemporary works by Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, Robert Nozick, and John Rawls. We’ll explore questions such as: How did the views of the founders differ from those of the nations they fled? What made the American experience so different? What is the proper role of government? What are some private voluntary alternatives to current government activities? We’ll discuss what the founders and a variety of economists, political philosophers, and public policy experts have to say about these important questions.
Students in this reading group will also attend a summit in Dallas, Texas, on February 28, 2026, on Southern Methodist University’s campus where they will meet with other students from Baylor, Texas Tech, and SMU, who read the same works. Please note: the weekend summit at SMU is a required part of the program.
This reading group is facilitated by Dr. Collin Hodges and will meet on Monday evenings from 5:00 – 7:00 pm, beginning January 26, 2026.
Want to check out our past reading group topics? Click here! Or watch the below video to get an idea of what an ACRE reading group could be like for you.