‘Universities Have Lost Their Way’: Ralston College President Stephen Blackwood

American Thought Leaders

Jan Jekielek

Government, News, Politics

4.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

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Summary

Universities today are increasingly plagued by ideological nihilism, bloated costs, and the growing infantilization of students with “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings,” says Ralston College President Stephen Blackwood.

And far too many students are being funneled into universities as the default step after high school, he says. “We’re trying to make universities the kind of catch-all for job training, and universities have historically not played that role,” Blackwood says.

Ralston College is an attempt to restore a rich and transformative humanities education, one that ponders the deepest questions of life and that seeks out what is true and what is beautiful.

“We thought it was necessary, at this time in Western civilization, to revive the conditions for human flourishing, to reinvent and revive the university and the fundamental role that communities of learning have played throughout the entire trajectory irreducibly in Western civilization,” Blackwood says.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The paradox of civilization is birth and rebirth. It's only our having the courage in every age,
0:06.2	in every time to take the greatest that we have received and to give it to the young, to transmit,
0:11.3	to light the fires in the next generation so they can continue them to the next.
0:14.9	In this episode, as part of my special series on education alternatives, I'm sitting down
0:20.4	at Stephen Blackwood, the founding
0:22.3	president of Ralston College.
0:24.4	I lived a life worth living.
0:26.0	In my own eyes, many people get to the end and they think the answer to that question
0:28.9	is no.
0:29.9	The reason I say that is because if indeed you might say as a loadstone, as a goal towards
0:34.7	which you're aiming, you want to live a life that you yourself regard is worth living,
0:39.3	then you might say that the most useful thing to a human being would be the things that would enable you to say yes to that question when the time comes.
0:46.3	And that is really what the humanities are for, is enabled you to navigate questions of morality and mortality and the
0:52.3	fleetingness and difficulty and suffering of life
0:55.2	in relation to the things that make it worth living. This is American Thought Leaders and I'm Yanya Kelly.
1:03.1	Dr. Stephen Blackwood, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders. Great to be back. Thank you.
1:08.4	It's been three and a half years. Amazingly I looked and it feels like just yesterday, you've actually had multiple classes now come through
1:17.6	Ralston College in your Master's of Humanities program.
1:21.6	I'll tell the audience, just before we did this interview, I actually called one of the students,
1:25.6	who I've gotten to know, and I'll explain a little why I've gotten to know later, but in one word, she said it was transformative.
1:33.0	I'm sure you were happy to hear that.
1:34.9	Indeed, that's what we aim for. I mean, what's the purpose of an education at the highest level,
	...

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