The Dougout

Founders College is a new institution of secondary education that will specialize in providing a sound liberal arts education to its undergraduate students. The college is located near South Boston, Virginia. While the college is small, the first class will be limited to 150 students, Founders’ ambitions are great. Its purpose is to provide an integrated liberal arts education for serious students. The emphasis of Founders will be on teaching and the classroom effectiveness of their professors. Founders’ vision statement, in part, says:

The learning experience we offer is based on the integration of a carefully structured core of great ideas. We believe that true understanding comes from making connections, from training your mind to identify great ideas and discoveries, and from understanding how those ideas impact both the individual and entire civilizations.

A look at the three key elements that define Founders identity and distinguish it from other institutions will indicate how this vision will be translated into reality.

An interesting aspect of the Founders’ curriculum is the lack of electives. The first two years of instruction at Founders include four courses each in philosophy and history. The core curriculum has no less than five courses on arts and literature as required in the lower division of study. Two science and one economics course round out the first two years of study. This is rigor. There are no fluffy “intro” courses in “communications” or this and that “studies.” At the beginning of their junior year these students are going to actually understand the fundamental values of Western culture.

The available majors are also delimited allowing both college and student to concentrate on the fundamentals of the liberal arts. An aspect of this approach allows professors to provide a structure course suited for the individual student.

Such a curriculum requires an intellectually serious student. “Students” who want to major in alcohol and debauchery should apply elsewhere. The admission policy of Founders makes this clear. Students are expected to be able and willing to learn upon arrival, no “bonehead” classes are offered. One very interesting part of the admission policy:

Note: Founders College does not evaluate standardized test scores (SAT, ACT, etc.) in the admissions process.

Instead the admission officers at Founders are tasked to exercise judgment. The criteria are based on academic performance in high school and the rigor of a prospective student’s high school program. Personally, I’m thrilled to see professional educators who reject the “testing” racket, oops, industry.

Of course, the test is where “the rubber meets to road” and the road in question is the classroom. The foundation of the whole Founders’ concept is their faculty. They are still interviewing and have not listed yet who the instructors are going to be. However, Founders’ statement on the standards to be used in hiring is eye opening and refreshing:

At Founders, we ensure that all of our faculty are superlative teachers by requiring them to pass our revolutionary teacher training program. This unique, rigorous program gives them the skills they need to properly teach and motivate every student.

To ensure the continued quality of our classroom instruction, our faculty members are not given tenure. We believe that professors should be rewarded not for longevity, but for effectiveness and performance – and that’s how our teachers are evaluated, throughout their professorial careers. In keeping with the value placed on teaching, Founders is not a research institution; our professors are at Founders to teach, not publish. Our faculty is selected for their love of their field and their dedication to teaching students.

It is clear from the above description that the basic elements of what makes up a college are closely integrated at Founders. The founders of Founders are Objectivists. There has been some skepticism that Founders will be just a parody of a real college because of the philosophy of it principals. It seems clear from what they have so far produced, that this will be a serious institution of learning and it’s some public universities that are in danger of becoming parodies of what they once were.