Archives: Newsletter Post
Optimal Work: Making Work an Expression of Your Highest Ideals
As he was preparing to give a talk to Harvard undergraduates about how to do their best work, Dr. Kevin Majeres had an epiphany. He already had years of experience as a psychiatrist and faculty member at Harvard Medical School helping clients overcome their issues with anxiety, and he realized that his approach could also […]
College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be, 2nd edition by Andrew Delbanco
What is the point of attending college? For many, that question has as many answers as there are college students. Some students are simply hoping to have the quintessential college experience, others are looking to discover their passions, while still others are preparing for pre-professional training in engineering, medicine, or law. But what should the […]
Stanley Hauerwas Reflects on Callings
In this article from Virtues&Vocations: Higher Education for Human Flourishing, Stanley Hauerwas reflects on “Callings” and the relationship between virtues and vocations.
Gentle Power by Emilia Elisabet Lahti
In his viral TED talk “Why Ordinary People Need to Understand Power,” Eric Liu points out that, even though many might think of power as something that is at its core malevolent or evil, power is actually a neutral force. Just like fire, or the knowledge of physics, power can be used for good or […]
Education, Entrepreneurship, and Character: Creating Leaders that are both Principled and Innovative
When Carole Basile became the Dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, she knew that something needed to change. Not only were less and less undergraduates majoring in education, but even those who graduated hoping to become teachers were now leaving the profession. According to a survey conducted by the […]
Davidson College Deliberative Citizenship Initiative
College campuses have become another battleground in the culture wars, but at Davidson College, the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative (DCI) has committed to forging a different path by bringing together students, faculty, and community members to cultivate active listening, humility, empathy, and curiosity as they practice talking about difficult issues across differences. Even the name – […]
Education Rooted in Virtue
In March 2023, Josh participated in a Virtues & Vocations workshop with the inaugural cohort of Integrating Virtue Together. A version of this reflection originally appeared in his weekly newsletter, The Absent-Minded Professor. The recent rise of artificial intelligence tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT has renewed the conversation about the value and purpose of education. Is […]
An Immense World by Ed Yong
Dolphins use echolocation to “see” the world around them. Using only sound, they can create pictures of objects that they are then able to recognize when they see those same objects visually. But this way of seeing doesn’t just stop at the skin. When a dolphin “sees” someone swimming in the water using echolocation, they […]
Yuval Levin Explores the Responsibilities that Come with Elite Education
While acknowledging Americans’ discomfort with the idea of “elites,” Yuval Levin maintains that inevitably an elite class exists, and that universities play a key role in forming them. In “Character, Responsibility and Elite Education,” he explores the role and responsibility of higher education in forming the character of the people who are likely to be […]
Character in Times of Crisis: Creating Business Leaders in the Wake of the 2008 Financial Crisis
Following the 2008 financial crisis, Professors Mary Crossan, Gerard Seijts, and Jeffrey Gandz at Western University set out to discover what went wrong from a leadership point of view. What caused the financial oversights at so many large corporations that led to the catastrophe? Meeting with over 300 global business leaders, Crossan, Seijts, and Gandz […]