Archives: Magazine Post

In August 2017, just a few days after a white supremacist mob marched on the University of Virginia, one of their most eminent and committed professors, Chad Wellmon, wrote a provocative piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education.1 Wellmon found himself personally devastated by the events, while also deeply skeptical that his university could respond […]

“Virtues and Vocations” is a good name for a magazine designed to explore the moral challenges associated with educational institutions. Virtues and vocations are classical moral concepts that invite fresh ways to think about how the educational process can make a difference for the moral life of their students. The formative effect of universities on […]

Until recently, it has been taken as self-evident that higher education is good for the students and for society at large, and that American colleges and universities do an excellent job of providing it. But lately, storm clouds have been gathering over colleges and universities. Commentators are expressing serious doubts, both about whether colleges are […]

The formation of elites has always been an uncomfortable subject for Americans because we think the whole idea of elites somehow violates our democratic ethos. In a society of equals, it feels wrong to speak of how a leadership class should be fostered. But “elite” really just describes something inevitable: Whatever a society’s frameworks for […]

Inequality is killing us—some of us more than others. David R. Williams, a professor at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health and world-renowned researcher on the social determinants of health, studies just how racism and its intersection with class and gender have detrimental health effects. In a recent talk on “How Racism and Inequality Makes […]

In the fall term, I often teach an introductory, general education course called “Going to College in America.” Although grounded in my discipline—history—the assigned readings draw from economics, philosophy, sociology, and other fields. My goal is to allow students, often in their first term in college, to reflect on why they’re in college and what […]

“For character and for grit, not only does the expression of your character and your grit require that you are in a situation where that is possible, but you also are a product of your past, so we need young people to grow up in circumstances where they can develop the mindsets and skillsets that […]

We’ve arrived. Human activity has brought us to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a confluence and convergence of multiple technological innovations—nanotechnology, synthetic biology, biotechnology, digital twins, artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, etc.—where the physical, digital and biological realms can no longer be so clearly distinguished. Meanwhile, planet Earth is becoming less and less inhabitable for humans […]

For institutions of higher education that seek to integrate virtues into their curricula, there are numerous practical challenges. Reflecting on my own experiences directing the Institute for the Study of Human Flourishing at the University of Oklahoma (OU) from 2015–2022, I am convinced that anyone endeavoring to integrate virtue must not only understand philosophy, pedagogy, […]

those needed to teach, advise, persuade, weigh arguments those urgently needed for the work of perception work of the poet, the astronomer, the historian, architect of new streets work of the speaker who also listens meticulous delicate work of reaching the heart of the desperate woman, the desperate man —never-to-be-finished, still unbegun work of repair—it […]