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Hello
John,
Recently, an article in The College Fix previewed our plans to roll out the School of Conservative Studies by 2025. As I shared with the reporter, Russell Kirk wrote a memorandum in 1955 arguing that America needed a School of Conservative Studies to help challenge the overwhelming influence of liberal and progressive teaching in higher education, even at that time.
As the abysmal headlines coming out about the country's elite colleges and universities lately demonstrate, that need has only increased. The opportunity exists now to create a new institution that teaches the best of American conservatism.
Grounded in the moral, political, economic, and cultural inheritance of the West, such an innovative educational proposition will provide contemporary students high-quality conservative course content and help remedy the lack of exposure to serious conservative history and thought at this critical juncture. This is the purpose of our new School of Conservative Studies.
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Watch our video about the School of Conservative Studies
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The School of Conservative Studies will offer a series of integrated programs providing a comprehensive education in conservatism, both its key ideas and its imaginative dimensions, for students, journalists, professionals, and teachers at every level. Courses from the 101-401 level will be held in person at our village campus and through flexible online platforms. It will feature expert faculty who will connect students to timeless ideals and their humanistic foundations, as well as show how the American conservative tradition can help address today’s practical and urgent dilemmas.
If you know of friends or colleagues who would be interested in the School, please invite them to sign up for Kirk Center communications. If you'd like to become an early supporter of the School, you can support our work here.
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Another new initiative from the Kirk Center is a “Christianity and Culture” lecture series, in partnership with the Chesterton Academy located in the metro Detroit area. Russell Kirk and G.K. Chesterton shared an understanding of the central role of Christianity and the imagination in renewing our culture and redeeming our time. Drawing on their work, this four-part lecture series explores the foundations of Christian culture and the prospects for renewing it in our present day.
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The first lecturer will be Dale Ahlquist, President of the Society of G.K. Chesterton and a popular national speaker and writer, on the theme, “The Starry Pinnacle of the Commonplace: How to Restore the Normal to an Abnormal World.” The event will be held on February 22 in Troy, Michigan.
If you are in the greater Detroit area, please don’t hesitate to join the gathering. In the cheerful spirit of Kirk and Chesterton, it will be a buoyant occasion! More information and registration can be found here.
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In keeping with the theme of this letter, this month's Classic Kirk essay is “The Tension of Order and Freedom in the University.” First delivered as a lecture at Pepperdine University in 1982, this essay considers the degree to which order and freedom in universities and in society are linked, and the role religion plays in maintaining a healthy balance between them:
“If the great troubles of our time teach mankind anything,” Kirk wrote, “surely we ought now to recognize that true freedom cannot endure in a society that denies a transcendent order. A university that ridicules the claims of the transcendent must end without intellectual coherence—and without genuine intellectual freedom.”
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As always, thank you for your encouragement and prayers. For those of you in West Michigan, we hope to see you at one of our upcoming Kirk on Campus events later this month on "Nations, Markets, Families, and the Challenges of China" with Dr. Sam Gregg.
Sincerely,
Jeffrey O. Nelson
Executive Director & CEO
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