This experimental program explored the role of the blogosphere in discussion about ideas of liberty today. We gathered a group of people working in like-minded/policy-oriented institutions, some of whom are active bloggers, and many of whom are not. We explored what is happening in the blogosphere today among people interested…

This symposium generated twelve original papers to examine the purpose, methods, and practices of education in a liberal society. The resulting discussion encouraged a constructive dialogue on education in a free society that blends analytical, historical, sociological, and economic perspectives.

The conference explored education reform and the role of the state from the perspective of economic theory.

This conference compared "useful" and "liberal" philosophies of education during the transition from the Founding to the Progressive eras. We explored the relation between education and the democratic order, as well as what kind of education may be necessary to preserve democratic principles.

The goal of this conference was twofold: to think about Socrates as a teacher and student, and to explore the lessons to be learned from Socrates for educational purposes today. We examined the Socratic approach to knowledge and truth and its implications for the proper attitude and character of teacher…

Conferees explored the degree to which free individuals have a moral responsibility to pursue self-education in the American context, using the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Douglass, Henry Adams, and Abraham Lincoln.

The American Founders were greatly concerned with how education might contribute to individual liberty and responsibility and to the flourishing of a free society. Broad questions were explored in this conference: What are the aims of education, as the American Founders understood them? Did they think that education should form…

This conference brought together senior executives from foundations and think tanks to focus on the history of ideas of liberty and the institutions connected with fostering liberty, in the hope that such discussion would inform the perception of the present state of liberalism and how to move into the future.

This conference explored the role of excellence in higher education within a free society. We considered particularly the responsibility that university deans or presidents exercise over how college education prepares or fails to prepare the next generation to be responsible individuals living in a free society.

This colloquium explored the educational ideas of the Founding Generation, and the connection between these ideas and the maintenance of liberty in the republic.

This conference examined five significant thinkers from the first half of the twentieth century who addressed significant social, economic, and political challenges in their writings on education: John Dewey, Jacques Maritain, C. S. Lewis, F. R. Leavis, and T. S. Eliot.

This colloquium explored the nature and value of happiness as a foundation for virtue and civic duty and a condition and rationale for liberty in higher education.

Conferees discussed the purpose, content, and audience of a liberal arts education, and how such an education is related to the development and preservation of a free society.

This colloquium studied academic freedom and responsibility in the "Education in a Free Society" project, using two novels of C. P. Snow as the readings.

The program explored the role of the state in education, using the “apparent paradox” Goodrich saw in the statement “If, in a society already free, the state takes no action with regard to education, how can there be any assurance that the citizenry will know and understand the desirability of…

The idea for this particular conference was inspired by The Economic Institutions of Higher Education by J. Patrick Raines and Charles G. Leathers. The authors considered not only the purposes of higher education and curricular issues, but also how best to finance higher education and how alternative financing arrangements shape…

Using the works of Edwin Shils, this conference considered questions about the proper role of the university in a free society, what “academic freedom” is and whether it is important in higher education, and the responsibilities of faculty members.

The conference considered the question of how men and women destined for freedom should be educated through a close consideration of the theories and practices of Maria Montessori and a comparison of her views with those of Progressive and traditionalist educators.

Conferees interested in the changing nature of education reflected on the place of liberty, and the place of the whole idea of a university, in twenty-first-century education.

This conference addressed the following question: Given that German universities were, from the mid-eighteenth century to the 1920s, models of humane scholarship, scientific probity, and liberal learning, how is it that they succumbed so rapidly to domination by Hitler and the Nazi party? How could academics, committed to the examined…

This conference addressed fundamental questions facing trustees of colleges and universities (public and private). The key questions were whether higher education can promote a society of free and responsible individuals, and, if so, what is the role of the trustee in achieving that goal?

Discussions of higher education have taken on new importance and prominence in the public sphere as changes in the demographics of students, intellectual life on campus, and the pedagogical techniques available to faculty have led to questions about the very purpose and essence of higher education in the United States.…

Conferees examined how Emile presents the education of a free and self-reliant individual, who would be a responsible citizen in a free society, and his description of the role of family life in securing freedom and responsibility.

Conferees explored a series of Victorian thinkers’ skeptical reaction to modernity, assessing their worries about the dangers that modernity—specifically, utilitarianism and mechanization—posed to liberty, as well as their hope that education could moderate that danger.

Through the use of literature, this conference considered the character of institutions of higher learning and whether they have lost clarity of purpose in recent times, explored what factors help or hinder institutions in their attempt to educate people, and examined what role “education” takes in a free society.

This colloquium explored the Founders' intention concerning the nature of the pursuit of happiness as a moral source and the relationship between happiness with life, liberty, and private property as an educational mandate in colleges and universities and corporations. The focus was on original documents and thinking and their renewal…

The year 2015 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of E. G. West's Education and the State. This landmark work gave us a true history of public education in the United Kingdom, as well as a bird's-eye view of the politics that had so demeaned it. This conference revisited…

This conference considered the role of the university in a free society with special attention toward the role of academic freedom, the effect of specialization on liberal education, the relationship between liberal education and a free society, and the kind of culture and the conception of citizenship that is promoted…

This colloquium focused on the idea of liberal education and its relation to individual liberty as well as the connections between education and the character of well-ordered civil society. The main text was Liberty Fund's publication of George Turnbull's Observations upon Liberal Education, but readings also included Aristotle, Locke, and…

This colloquium discussed the current problems of higher education common to Latin America, but focused particularly on the Brazilian case, in light of its unique historical trajectory, philosophical background, the mission(s) universities actually perform currently, and how they square with their ideal role in a society based on individual liberty…

This colloquium discussed the fundamental aspects of a liberal education based on liberty and responsibility. Conferees had an opportunity to analyze, through a selection of classical texts on education, not only the idea of a university based on the liberal education tradition, but also a number of problems, such as…

Throughout most of the nineteenth century, moral education was regarded as a central mission of American colleges and universities, but it has come to occupy an increasingly marginalized role. This conference addressed questions about responsibility for university students’ moral formation and the possible restoration in contemporary higher education of venerable…