Course Description/Purpose

BYU's Board of Trustees created the idea of American Heritage 100 over 25 years ago because they believed that university students needed a better understanding of the origins of the Constitution and its role in American life. BYU developed American Heritage to help students better understand and appreciate the core principles and social architecture of the American founding. To do so, the course draws heavily from three different disciplines: political science, economics and history. Though the way we teach the course has changed in the intervening years, the course's objectives have not. American Heritage strives to support students as they:

Understand the religious, historical, political and economic origins of the Constitution;
Learn how the Constitution works;
Apply their knowledge of the Constitution to analyze major historical, political and economic issues; and
Become better informed, more active citizens.

All questions regarding American Heritage should be addressed to the department office. This includes items such as adding/dropping, incompletes, scheduling, exam issues, assignments, etc. For information regarding the Challenge Exam for American Heritage 100, please check under the menu titled "Challenge Exam" or click here.

The American Heritage department reserves the right to make changes to this website and to the information thereon without notice. Therefore, please make sure that you are using the most current information by verifying it here. Note: The American Heritage Website makes extensive use of files in PDF format. To read these, you need Adobe Reader. For a free download, please click here.