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In this episode of Heterodox Out Loud, John Tomasi speaks with Pano Kanelos, President of the University of Austin (UATX). Kanelos is a leading advocate for free speech and open inquiry in higher education. He believes that UATX can offer a better alternative to the current system, which is often characterized by censorship and groupthink.

Episode Transcript

John Tomasi: Pano Kanelos, welcome to Heterodox Out Loud.

Pano Kanelos: Thank you for having me, John. I'm very excited to be here and looking forward to our conversation.

John Tomasi: And I understand you woke up this morning in Austin at around 4 a.m.

Pano Kanelos: I did. I did. And I had the wrong time for my flight in mind and had a late mad dash to the airport, but I am here and happy to be here.

John Tomasi: You would do anything to get to New York to be on Heterodox Out Loud. So, we're really happy to have you here. Thank you.

Pano Kanelos: Sure.

John Tomasi: So, we're going to talk about the University of Austin. UATX was born in controversy. In November 2021, you wrote a piece on Bari Weiss's Substack announcing your intention to start a new university, you and your colleagues. It was called, We Can't Wait for Universities to Fix Themselves, So We're Starting a New One. Among the things you wrote in that piece were, you said that, quote, on our quads, faculty are being treated like thought criminals. And he said, quote, We had thought such an insuriousness was possible only under oppressive regimes in distant lands. But it turns out that fear can become endemic in a free society and it's most acute in our universities. And he also said, at our most prestigious schools, the primary incentive is to function as a finishing school for the national global elite. Amidst the brick and ivy, these students entertain ever more inaccessible theories, which often just blocks away their neighbors figured out how to scratch a living. The backlash was strong, unpredictable, perhaps. Some people who you and I both greatly admire, defendants of free speech like Bob Zimmer, stepped away. There were a host of articles with titles like, Who's Afraid of Higher Ed? Is UATX against? It's UATX against everyone, including itself. And does America really need a new conservative university? UATX was accused of all kinds of things. It was accused of one-sided nostalgia, of Straussian indoctrination, of race segregationism, of sexism, and it was called a Bible college for libertarians. And yet, during those same early days, there were thousands of parents, students, and professors who reached out to you, applauding what you're doing and expressing hope. And I mentioned this to you as we were just speaking, that last night when I was preparing for this interview, I went back and I reread Teddy Roosevelt's famous speech about the man in the arena, which he gave at a university at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1910. And Roosevelt wrote, It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena. So, is UATX or are you the man in the arena?

Pano Kanelos: Oh my, what a question to start with. We are in an arena for sure. I mean, you know, we have decided to enter a shortly contested space. You know, education is really in many ways where many of our sort of cultural, where so much of our cultural pressure is kind of, you know, being, just becoming intense right now. And, and I will say at the beginning, you know, I, I was surprised by the kind of, let's say, volume of the feedback.

John Tomasi: Vitriol, you could add.

Pano Kanelos: Some of it was vitriol. Look, some of the criticism is fine. I mean, they're like, you know, I mean, some of the, you know, are, you know, is it possible to start a new university today? If we start this new university, are we going to succumb to the same forces that have, that we're currently critiquing, you know, that sort of thing. And I think the kind of critical feedback was important. I was just, you know, I mean, the, the volume of interest. I mean, we were in the first 48 hours, I think, after that article came out, we were the number one news story on Twitter in the world. And it was just, all we said is, we're starting a new university. Yes, we didn't Remarkable. And so, and that just, I think, speaks to the intensity around these issues. And so it very much felt like we were being thrust into an arena. Since then, it's just, it's, we've been building a university and, and, and doing it in a way that, you know, putting in the hard work to, to take all the steps to make sure that we're building a university and that aligns with the principles that we, that we have, that is in alignment with the values of, you know, of our sort of core members and our supporters. It's been a learning process. It's been intense. It's been a joy. It's been a frustration. But we've come a long way. I mean, you know, we're two years in this project and we are, you know, on the verge of bringing in our first class of freshmen. You know, I'm very excited to hear about the progress and we're what's, what's next for you. Let me, let me knock it back to the very beginning.

John Tomasi: We've already been there a moment ago, but just, just help us, help us get a better picture of what success would like for you ATX. And this is one way I might put that question. Do you see the central aim? This is New York. You can hear the sirens. Is the aim to build one great free thinking college or is the aim in some sense to change the university system as a whole?

Pano Kanelos: Well, I don't think those are separable. I think to change things, you have to build things. So, you know, one of the things I say often is, you know, we, we live in a world where it feels like everything's falling apart. People are dividing themselves, polarization, institutional, you know, faith in institutions crumbling and that. And, and the real response in times like this is to build, to create a new, not to create things that are perfect. I mean, I'll be the first person to say that it's impossible to create a perfect institution, but to create an institution that's ambitious. Ambitious, not only in terms of its principles, what it represents, but in terms of thinking about the, the variety of challenges that face higher education and how to confront them. And in building a university that takes those challenges seriously and finds adaptive and creative ways to overcome some of the challenges higher ed faces, you know, then we, we have, we, you know, we make it possible for a broader systemic change. And there's no way a single institution could possibly be the catalyst for, for all the change that we need across something as vast as the, you know, the, the, the universe of higher education. But it's, you know, it, I think it is a, a pebble in a pond and I think there are ripples. I'll give you an example. I mean, you know, people often think of UATX as being associated with, you know, what I would say into call intellectual pluralism or civil discourse that, and those are first principles that we think are essential and then have to be retained and preserved in higher education. But we're just as concerned with the financial model in higher education. Right. and also with the kind of curricular stasis of higher education, you know, the fact that we really haven't thought deeply about changing the model in higher education and over a century. And so these are things when you have a new university, a new sandbox, you're really trying to come up with creative ways to, move in the right direction on many different fronts.

John Tomasi: So you, you, when you talk about building good things, there's a, an idea about from the theory of social change that I, that I find really interesting. And then some models, people say there are two different ways to think about social change. You can fight bad things or you can build good ones. Yeah. Those aren't exclusive. Maybe by fighting bad things, you make space for good ones. Maybe by building good ones, you interview along the way, help to critique against some of the bad ones. But it seems like you guys are really in a clear way, throwing in, throwing your hat in the ring and the arena for building something good. That's your, that's your, that's your, that's your ambition. Look, you, you can't build an institution, you know, and to be against things, you have to build an institution before things. You have to build a university that has, you know, directionality, a telos, you know, a mission. You have to know what it is that you're trying to accomplish.

Pano Kanelos: And you have to know what it is that you're going to inspire people, you know, so that they can, so they can follow you. And, you know, yes. I mean, you read sort of the initial statement that went on and I was a little riled up at that point. I'm not going to lie. You know, I just, It was a drum line. Yeah. All right. It kind of was. I mean, look, it was, I'm sure. So, so you said, you know, you don't, we, you know, you don't necessarily act against bad, bad things. You want to create good things. I don't think higher education is a bad thing. In fact, I think higher education is one of the most excellent things that civilization has ever produced. You've been a president of one of the most illustrious colleges in our country, a place where I was a student. So I've spent my entire life in education in one form or another, and my entire career in higher education. And I've been, you know, incredibly blessed to go from, you know, I was a first gen college student, you know, my parents were from Greece as the first one in my family ever to go to college. I didn't know that. Yeah. And in one generation, and, you know, we go from first gen college student to having the privilege of being a college president and starting a university. It's amazing. Higher ed makes that possible. I'd love higher education. I really do.

John Tomasi: And so that's what gets you riled up when you sort of feel like, oh, you know, that's something that you love so dearly is not living up to its, its, its sort of best self. So that was that moment.

Pano Kanelos: But I realized really quickly after that, I'm like, we don't want, you said, are we in the arena? I don't want to be in that arena. I don't want to fight culture wars. I don't want to be, you know, against the constitutional, institutional higher education. We just want to create something that strives for excellence and that perhaps models a kind of, you know, institution that others can follow and ask questions. And we'll try our best to get as many things right as possible.

John Tomasi: So, so that, you know, when I asked about you being the man in the arena or the institution in the arena, I think I was sort of partly thinking, I was thinking mainly about the, just the idea of the human experience being out there, trying something new, no matter what it is, even in a non-partisan effort. People criticize and that's what Roosevelt's talking about. But there is the other sense of that, that I think you're picking up on. That's that, this question of whether UATX is a new partisan in the culture wars, because it stands up for a certain set of values, values about objectivity and a belief in a certain conception of truth, or maybe a belief in truth itself as a kind of a premise. Or is, or is, or is, or is Austin aiming to be outside the culture wars, because it's a place where the, maybe the only place where genuine conversations about all these questions can be had in an open-minded way. That's sort of a fine question that I probably didn't get quite right.

Pano Kanelos: I really understand the heart of it. This is something I think we also struggle with and think about, you know, when we came, when we went public, we said, you know, we're a university dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth.

John Tomasi: Yes. People worried.

Pano Kanelos: Like, what does that mean? Right? And it depends on where you put the accent, right? I mean, it's pursuit. I mean, that's, that's what the accent is, right? Pursuit of truth, not the pursuit of big T truth that somehow we were sort of 99% of the way there, and we're going to drag everybody with us. I mean, I guess I have a very difficult time understanding how the institution of higher education can work without having as an ambition, the pursuit of truth. I don't understand what the enterprise is for. You know, on the one hand, and I think this is maybe part of the schizophrenia we see in contemporary modern higher education, which becomes manifest to some degree at almost every institution. On the one hand, you have like the, this sort of commitment or this, it's not a commitment, at least an inclination towards relativism, right? There's just no such thing as true. Like there's this truth, that truth, you know, et cetera. You know, we just can't pin anything down. It's mercurial and it's, you know, it's naive or foolish to think you can do that. So you have relativism on one side. And then the other hand, you have what I would just call ideology. Ideology is a totalizing set of explanations for the world, a fixed truth. And the truth is, what seems right to me, is that most universities hold both of those positions at the same time, and they're irreconcilable. And it creates a kind of a kind of schizophrenic kind of pathology. And so I think what our goal is, is to sail between the Scylla of relativism and the Charybdis of ideology, to aim for truth without claiming that we have it, or that even most things that are discernible, you know, through the human intellect are, you know, are attainable in terms of truth claims, you know, by us. But there's, but that's, you know, that's what you do. You're trying to, you're holding onto an idea of truth as a goal, you know, but you can't lock into ideologies.

John Tomasi: Nice. Nice. I mean, I would say that, so the fearless pursuit of truth, you know, some people heard that, hear that, and they think of truth. Some of my postmodernist friends in the academy, they hear truth as a dog whistle, but maybe knowledge, the fearless pursuit of knowledge. I'm sorry, understanding, maybe.

Pano Kanelos: I think all of those words are cognate. I think that's right. I'm kind of over the idea of dog whistles, because I mean, suddenly everything's a dog whistle. You know, you can't just sort of use language anymore. And I do think it's important to find, and this is something I push our team to do all the time, like, in order to not sort of get entangled in culture wars and those sort of issues, in order to show that we actually are, let's say, non-partisan, post-partisan, trans-partisan, or whatever it is. I don't know. Whatever that is, I think what we have to do is not lapse into the terms that are charged, the ones we use over and over again. And not because they're not accurate, but because they've been sort of occupied. So I think a great example, and I'm sure this is something that you all think about in the HxA context is intellectual diversity. Now, apparently intellectual diversity is a dog whistle, right?

John Tomasi: Absolutely.

Pano Kanelos: And it's like, you know, you sort of think about it, you're like, okay, what's wrong with this? And I'm like, okay, fine. That term's been occupied. So how do we express what we mean in our own framework? And so we use, for example, the word intellectual pluralism, which I think is, you know, close or it's massively overlapping with intellectual diversity, but has maybe just a different tonality.

John Tomasi: Pluralism sounds inclusive.

Pano Kanelos: Sounds inclusive. It will become a dog whistle, I guarantee you at some point.

John Tomasi: No doubt.

Pano Kanelos: And that's this kind of creeping effect.

John Tomasi: As a result of this podcast.

Pano Kanelos: Yes, we've just canceled the term intellectual pluralism. We're never going to be able to use it again. But I think it's important. And I actually think that's, again, as I said, we've learned things along the way. I think standing up and meeting that challenge is important. Like, how do we keep our ideas fresh and keep ourselves honest in the process? If we just lapse into language that is kind of denuded and it becomes unhelpful. And then we can be, I think, charged with being, you know, using language in a kind of blockish political way.

John Tomasi: You know, what really strikes me, what struck me, I remember when I first read the idea of the "fearless pursuit of truth." I'm interested that you put emphasis on pursuit.

Pano Kanelos: Yeah. Yeah.

John Tomasi: Which I understand. For me, the word "fearless" is what really struck me. The idea that people are going to pursue understanding in all different kinds of ways. That'll be unsettling. That'll take some courage sometimes to ask the question and to hear it in an open-minded way. So I just thought that, for me, that was kind of what, I think that's, I think the slogan stirred a lot of people, probably in different ways, positively and negatively, but even the positive people who are on general posture positively, they may have picked out different words on that to sort of work entirely. No, I think you're right about "fearless".

Pano Kanelos: I think "fearless" is kind of a hinge term as well. I mean, on the one hand, it refers to our posture as we seek truth, like to be courageous ourselves so that we, you know, are sort of, you know, willing to go places that, you know, are terrifying, right? Intellectually. I mean, trying to pull ourselves out of a cave. On the other hand, we think universities should be a place where one shouldn't fear pursuing the truth. In other words, the kind of consequences that come with the pursuit of truth, you know, should be mitigated in universities. So if you're, if you, let's say, you know, you're, you're unorthodox, you're heterodox, you want to put out opinions that push against the system, a university should be a place that incentivizes and welcomes that and doesn't, you know, doesn't create anxiety around that. I mean, I often say universities as the places where orthodoxy and heterodoxy should come together. Right. Good. Good. You know, one of the lines you, you, that you had in that essay that really struck me, you said that the universities, universities, universities are the places where society does its thinking. And it made me just think back to the, the platonic ideal from 387 BC, Plato's Academy, that's the founding here.

John Tomasi: And the idea of a place in a grove outside of the city where people leave behind the oikos, the economic things, they leave behind politikos, the political things, and they go to a place to do something else to search for the truth. And that idea that the university is a place separated from ordinary, ordinary run of politics. That's partly what's so radical about the Austin ideal and what stirred so much fervor because so many, many people believe universities have a long been and should continue being the central, essential sites of political conflict. And, and so it's hard to, when you, it's just the very, the very announcement that you're going to separate to go, to go to, to create a grove, to move, remove yourselves to a grove in Austin. I think that's partly what stirred some of those concerns or that reaction, I should say.

Pano Kanelos: I think universities should be places where politics are studied, but politics should not be the operating system of a university. because I think ultimately of politics dominate institutions of higher learning, it compromises the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of truth. it, it reshuffles the priorities of the institution in a way that don't allow for, what's needed, which is a kind of, look, I think one of the reasons we have universities as places set apart is to give ourselves some distance from the quotidian, you know, some distance from the fog of everyday life. Right. So that we can better understand ourselves. Right. Not so that we're removed from it, but that we have enough of a remove so that when we engage with life, we have just a, we have clearer sight. We have a clear understanding of what, what the, what's propelling us forward. and we don't have many places where we can do that. you know, one thing I, I often think about, universities as places where you are thinking, it's a particular kind of thinking it's thinking over time. So universities are institutions in the sense that they're, they're meant to stretch, you know, beyond a particular moment in time, both institutionally, I think, and academically. So in universities are where we think over time together. And a contrast to that, for example, would be journalism media where we think, or we, we consider the world in a perpetual present, right? The job of, of a journalist in the media is you sort of live in this kind of perpetual present that's constantly shifting. And you're trying to understand that moment. It's fine. Everything you say is provisional. You can be wrong six months later. That's okay. and then I think there's actually a different kind of knowledge that we seek. And I would say through sacred institutions, it's about knowledge outside of time. And so universities have a particular place in the, in the strata of knowledge seeking. And it's, it's, you know, stretching the through line of human experience and thought as long and far as possible gives us purchase on who we are right now.

John Tomasi: That's, that's, that's lovely. It's beautiful. That's beautifully expressed. I'll, I'll just express it on idea less, less eloquently that, that just to share it with you, I think part of the engine or part of the, the fuel that drives the political partisans on college campuses is to do a time as well. It's their claims for the urgency of their cause. So they say on some, the students sometimes say, we don't have time to pause and have a considered conversation about this. The planet's, the planet's dying right now, or racism is killing people right now. And we just need to act on this politically because there's no time for thinking. And they see people who call university on the university campuses for pause, for reflection, for hearing the other side, for stepping outside your shoes into their shoes. They hear all of that, that, that call for time. They are for taking one's time. They hear all that as a kind of a, disloyalty or a lack of solidarity. So there's something interesting about that. There's a, there's a politics goes with being in a rush on the campus, perhaps.

Pano Kanelos: I think, I think that's right. I think that's right. And I think campuses, it, look, it's fine for students to be politically engaged and active and for anybody, faculty and that to have, have that sense of urgency about their cause. I mean, I think that's right, but I think the institution has to, has to kind of, be in the habit of slowing things down for the greater good, because, you know, we can rush into things, you know, responsibly or irresponsibly. I mean, they're just, you know, just, you know, just rush into things responsibly or irresponsibly, you know, and, and, you know, reflection is never a bad thing. Self-reflection is, in fact, I think a human obligation.

John Tomasi: And when we find ourselves not being self-reflective, I think we're not being fully human. And I think that's a problem. Socrates says, know thyself. That takes a little bit of time to do and some courage, some courage too. Let's talk about, let's talk about, UATX and the idea of the curriculum that you're developing there. You know, one, one, one place I remember hearing you say that the Austin curriculum will be the first, that combines instructions from great teachers with instruction also from society's great doers. Yeah. So there's something interesting going on at Austin in that way. Can you just tell us about the curriculum and what how you're imagining it and how it looks to you now?

Pano Kanelos: One of the fun things about building an institution on the ground.

John Tomasi: Look at you smiling.

Pano Kanelos: I love this stuff, you know, is that you really, you know, you haven't, it is a sandbox. You sort of get to build something, you, you're, you're, you sort of have a set of challenges that you're trying to meet and you get to build something, you know, custom made bespoke. and so the way we've approached the curriculum is, you know, from the starting point that universities are places where, theoretical knowledge, you know, philosophical inquiry, you know, diving into great questions are essential, but as kind of predicates to living and doing things in the world. So that's, you know, they are, they are, they are components of human flourishing. so how do you build a curriculum that allows us to spend as much time with thought as we might preparing for action? God, you know, words and deeds. And so, you know, we took, you know, the one thing I, you know, one thing that's kind of always frustrated me, being at universities is the, you know, we have this four-year block, right? Universities are mandated to be essentially 120 credit delivery systems. And yet for the most part, we don't really think about the shape of an education during those four years, or, we don't think about the sequence very carefully. We don't think about how the parts fit together. So, you know, the average student goes to a university and they have a set of general education requirements they have to fulfill. And it's just, you know, it's a buffet and most choices are, well, you know, I don't want to get up at nine in the morning, so I'm going to take this class. And that was my experience. I was, I was a radically irresponsible college student. I was a terrible college student. And, and so you just kind of, you know, you kind of dig a storm and then you have something called a major and the major is a little more organized than that, but majors are kind of a small part of what you actually do, you know, over those 120 credits. And by the end of it, you're like, okay, could we have organized things in a way that where the parts would add up to something greater? So that's part of our challenge. So, you know, thought in action being more purposeful. So what we've done is we have a curriculum, I'd say, that has three basic components. For the first two years, students are engaged mostly in what we call the intellectual foundations program. Right. And this is a program, it's a liberal arts centered program, which means it's prismatic. It has, you're drawing on all different fields of knowledge, literature, philosophy, history, mathematics, the sciences, thinking about great human questions. And all the courses are designed to interlock with each other and be sequence. So all the students take the same courses in the same order together. The idea, the sort of organizing principle behind intellectual foundations is where I put it sort of the genealogy of modernity. Like, how did we get where we are today? What are the major thought currents? Where have, where have we encountered, you know, differences and philosophical differences over time? What ideas have been productive or destructive? You know, what have we decided matters? What have we left behind? You know, these sorts of things. So big picture, you know, genealogy of modernity, so that we can understand who we are in the moment. So now we know how to, I'm saying we know how to, we can best determine how to act in the moment. So that's the sort of first part of the experience.

John Tomasi: And that's a, and that's a two-year program.

Pano Kanelos: Two-year program.

John Tomasi: It's sort of a foundations of intellectual history, you might say.

Pano Kanelos: It's our version of the general education program. So it's all encompassing, all the credits you take in a general ed program, but instead of being, you know, sort of detached from one another, they're synthesized into this larger purpose of helping us understand where humans have come from and where we are.

John Tomasi: Forgive me, but I'm sorry, I'm surprised you said it's like a GED program. I would have thought...

Pano Kanelos: G, general ed.

John Tomasi: General ed, sorry.

Pano Kanelos: Yeah.

John Tomasi: Forgive me. I thought you, I thought you would say it's like the St. John's College program, but includes the 20th century.

Pano Kanelos: Well, it is... St. John's College DNA is built into this as well.

John Tomasi: Right.

Pano Kanelos: I mean, the kind of idea that the way that we think about, you know, let's say, interrogating human knowledge is by, you know, reading books that have been speaking to each other for a very long time and taking each of those books on its own terms very seriously. So...

John Tomasi: But including contemporary texts.

Pano Kanelos: But it does, yes.

John Tomasi: I'm thinking of the Stratusian Church, that it's going to be a lot of...

Pano Kanelos: Yeah, so...

John Tomasi: The Theaetetus and all the abstract dialogues or Arkham.

Pano Kanelos: Yeah.

John Tomasi: And Ptolemy for two months and so forth. I mean, at St. John's, there was almost nothing that was read after, you know, the mid 20th century, and that was purposeful.

Pano Kanelos: Right.

John Tomasi: I remember. And I think that was sort of bound with the idea that what you read at St. John's are great books. And so there's a kind of, you need a kind of marinating time to determine whether something's great.

Pano Kanelos: That's right. That's not necessarily, I mean, we're not fully committed to great books in the same way, although many of the things we read would be considered great books. It's not a great books education. It's a liberal education that we're offering, which is a little bit different.

John Tomasi: So it would include economics?

Pano Kanelos: Of course.

John Tomasi: Yeah. Yeah, which, right.

Pano Kanelos: So some of the things social, sort of fields of social science, I mean, that would...

John Tomasi: Which are recent phenomenons, last hundred years.

Pano Kanelos: Yeah, for the most part. I mean, you know, it depends on...

John Tomasi: How you count Tocqueville. Or Adam Smith or something, you know.

Pano Kanelos: Fair enough, fair enough. But that's the first part. So really just kind of grounding. And one thing we've taken from St. John's, I think is invaluable, is that students have a common intellectual journey.

John Tomasi: Right.

Pano Kanelos: So all the students are kind of in the same classes, reading the same text at the same time. So this opens up the classroom. It means that the classroom isn't the only place where you think together, but you think together, you know, when you're having meals or, you know, you're at the bus stop, whatever, all the ideas from the class are constantly ricocheting around.

John Tomasi: Nice.

Pano Kanelos: And I think that's very important. I think it's a gift that we've taken from St. John's.

John Tomasi: I don't want to wax poetic about my experience at St. John's College, but I'll never forget Thursday nights after seminar, retiring to the Great Hall. And there'd be all these people sitting around talking about the same set of readings. And you could talk to an older classman, an upperclassman who'd read the Odysseus, you know, two years before when they want, and they know all the things you know, too. And it's fascinating having community of that way, kind of a shared set of puzzles that you're pondering together. If they're well-chosen puzzles, it's a remarkable, it's a remarkable experience.

Pano Kanelos: And it really is a kind of intellectual force multiplier, you know, because, you know, like you say, you can speak across classes, you can speak, you know, alumni have read most of the same books for the current students. I mean, it's just, and the faculty are all teaching those books. So it's great. So that's the first two years at UATX. And then, and then we move into kind of a different mode. So rather than traditional academic departments that are primarily oriented towards academic scholarship, we've created what we call academic centers of inquiry that are meant to be the meeting place of scholarship and let's say, you know, practical application in the world. So our faculty in those, in the centers may be a sort of, you know, traditional, you know, classicist, you know, doing work on the Theaetetus, you know, or they, you know, they might be somebody who's a computer engineer, who's thinking deeply about the relationship of the classical languages to, you know, or the development to modern language and that, and yet where they're sort of combined in the same centers and students will then, after they leave the intellectual foundations program, rather than have a major, they become a junior fellow at one of these centers. And then they're sort of integrated into the work that the faculty and practitioners are engaged in.

John Tomasi: And these centers are all interdisciplinary centers?

Pano Kanelos: They're, they're, they're broadly disciplinary. So we're still playing around with the kind of, let's say shape of these. So we have one that's the Center for Economics, Politics, and History, Center for Arts and Letters, STEM. As we grow over time and we have more programs, these will be broken into different kinds of units. We're going to play with different combinations. But the idea is that each center, rather than being a silo, is an overlapping circle. Interesting. So that faculty will often jump back and forth between the centers, courses are cross-listed. So there's a kind of fluidity. You need something of a core, right? You need something that kind of stabilizes the pursuit of knowledge. So each center has its kind of foundations core, but then you need to incentivize people to think about the connections between education and, you know, and computer science, science or, you know, mathematics and politics and these sorts of things. So, you know, so we're trying to have fields of knowledge that are, that have kind of fluidity while still maintaining some disciplinarity. So students will do that. And then the third component of the UATX curriculum is radically distinctive, I think.

John Tomasi: Is this Polaris?

Pano Kanelos: This is what we call our Polaris project.

John Tomasi: Tell us about it.

Pano Kanelos: So our symbol, you know, other schools have like mascots of like, you know, badgers and lions and all those things. Our symbol is the North Star, okay? And again, this goes with the pursuit of truth. You know, the North Star is out there. We're never going to get to the North Star, but it gives us direction.

John Tomasi: Right.

Pano Kanelos: This is something to aim for. And it, and it helps us navigate through, through, you know, darkness, through ignorance. So every student has a Polaris project. And the, the purpose of this project is from the moment they get on campus, they become part of this kind of integrated systematic program that helps them do vocational discernment, personal discernment in the early stages, trying to identify like, what are, what's a student's greatest gifts and how do you match those gifts with the world's greatest need? And then once you have that kind of, you know, those things start to come together, we want students to design a project that is extremely ambitious, kind of, let's call it an entrepreneurial project. Although it could be, it doesn't have to be business or technically an arts project, it could be anything that is going to try to bring their gifts to the world's greatest need. And so...

John Tomasi: Try to bring their gifts to the world's greatest needs.

Pano Kanelos: Yes. And, and I'll give you an example. I use this one all the time. It's my favorite one. I was talking to a young man and, and I, we're talking about the Polaris project, perspective student. And I said, well, look, you know, you're going to have to do this four year long project and it's going to be highly structured, mentored. We're going to teach you how to plan for it and resource and that, but it has to be something really important. And it has to have some, some kind of significant impact. And I said, so what's your passion? Like where, where would we start? He's like, oh, he's like, well, I love the ancient world. So I love Greece and Rome. I love classical languages and all that. I said, oh, this is going to be tough. Like, and so we thought about it for a bit and then, and I said, well, how would you, how would you take that passion and extend it as broadly as you could to others? And he said, you know, I read recently that there are fewer than a hundred thousand people who know how to read ancient Greek. Is that true? It's what he said. It may have been in the U S or something, but it was whatever the data point was. I said, okay. He said, I want to teach a hundred thousand more people how to read ancient Greek. And I thought, what a great project. Like think about everything that goes into that. I mean, it's, it is everything like deciding, okay, what's the, what's the district, what's the delivery mechanism? What's the institution? How do I fund it? That kind of fund it. How do I teach it motivated? Like, is it, is it tech technologically based, whatever it is, what's the timeframe? Is there a business plan? So, you know, I mean, so we see ourselves, when do you start? That's interesting, right? I see immediately all the questions, right? When do you start? How do you find them? How do you find them? You know, and how do you measure, right? All these things, right? And so wrapping your mind around that, but having four years so that it's essentially running through the entire length of your undergraduate education. So you have, it has. So Polaris is, is concurrent with these other phases. So it runs through the other phases. So that in the beginning, when you're still sort of mulling over the project, you know, you are going through, let's say the more philosophical phase of your education. So you're thinking about what are, what's important to humanity? What's important to me? What are these questions we need to answer? You know, and then, but then you start to learn how to practically apply the knowledge that you've gained along the way as you move forward.

John Tomasi: So it's a very different model for education. Can I just say something what really strikes me about that? It's really interesting that I think, you know, one of the, one of the great dangers, I think, presented by our current educational system is the conformity that people in high school feel they need to accept for themselves to meet certain standards of certain criteria so they can get, so that they can get in. And there's this thing within every individual, the person you are, the unique individual that we each are. And that just strikes me thinking about this now, the way you described it that, I mean, you might say, well, having an 18 year old as a freshman and trying to decide what's their project going to be for four years isn't too, it's too early to do that. On the other hand though, you might say, you know, that thing you would love, attend to that. Yeah. You know, that little thing that they didn't care about in the admissions program, you try to apply to Harvard or whatever, or Brown, or whatever it might be. That thing that, you know, whatever, whatever it might be, right? Something about the guitar, something about poverty, something about Greek. it's fascinating. And it says, pause and say, say, what are you uniquely? And, and, and insisting that your education is meant to serve that meant to serve you, right? So in, in high school, I have high school kids now, and, you know, thinking about college and that there's so much pressure, as you were saying, not to be themselves, but to be the ideal candidate.

Pano Kanelos: That's right. That's right. And, and it's sad. It's sad to watch. It is. And I think this is one of the reasons why, students, when they get to university are sort of depleted, but they don't know what, okay. Okay. I'm here now. Everything I've done has been oriented. It's like crossing the threshold. How do I find myself? And that's one of the things we want to do is be like, you're here now. The important stuff starts now. That's right. Let's start mining you. Right. So it doesn't, you know, it's not about checking boxes for a major. It's not about checking requirements. It's like, it's, it's about coming out of this with a deeper understanding of yourself, your capabilities, your ambitions, and, and the challenges that you'll face. So look, I have no doubt that a significant portion of these Polaris projects will not be completed by the time a student leaves. They'll maybe get 20% of the way. That doesn't matter. It's again, the directionality, the inspiration, that kind of North star that gives you something to, to, to seek moving towards. It's important. And, and what you discover along the way is your education. That's what your education is.

John Tomasi: I wonder if there's a connection between that aspect of the program, that Polaris element and the UATX, the basic idea about being a place for free thinking. And one way, one way I'll say that is that I'll just, as this is a hypothesis, not well formed, but I'll just share it. We can do what we want. I wonder if that competitive process of admissions preparation in high school that most people go through softens them up, softens them up for the conformity that we see on many campuses, because they haven't had a chance to individuate. I was, I was, I went to a play recently, Prometheus Bound. And there's this wonderful line early in Prometheus Bound where strength and violence are taking Hephaestus out to tie Prometheus to the rock. And, Hephaestus says to strengthen violence, Kratos and Bia, in you, the will of Zeus finds its perfect fulfillment for a new, there's nothing to stand in its way. They simply are strength and their violence. There's no individuation at all. So when there's a powerful force of authority saying, do this thing, there was no, no one dare within strength or violence to say, but what about me? What about my love of that? Is it wrong for me to, I'm not sure about that, but it's, it's interesting that maybe there's something about, there's some connection between that individual, individuation and freedom of thinking.

Pano Kanelos: Look, what are we teaching students through the process of preparing them for application to universities? We're teaching them that success is predicated upon conformity and submission.

John Tomasi: That's exactly what I meant. Much better.

Pano Kanelos: That's what we're teaching them. And then they get to universities and they carry that lesson with them. And so here we are, you know, let's say you take the elite universities in the U S which have, you know, the ability to attract, you know, the best and brightest students from around the world who come with so much innate potential to be independent thinkers and creative in that. And yet what they learn is that the, that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, at the end of this experience is accessible only if you conform, if you submit to, you know, what the institution is, is compelling you to do. and then, and I think, you know, that's why in the classroom, for example, students are so risk averse when it comes to conversation, because what they've learned is it's, the, the purpose of seeking an education isn't about taking risk. It's about mitigating risk. You know, it's fascinating. You're not going to get into, you know, the, your top choice university by taking risks. You're going to get in there by shaping yourself in a way that enhances your percentage chance to get over the threshold. And, and the funny thing is you have to pretend like you're a risk taker along the way. Like you have to start, you know, a snowball company or whatever it is, you know, that, and these are all more, but they're also predictable that in fact, it's a kind of, you know, it's, it's independence wrapped in conformity.

John Tomasi: You know, I asked you before, whether your aim was to build one great free thinking college or to disrupt the whole system, which I'm aware is kind of a loaded question in that, but no, but I want to return to it in a specific way. I'm interested in governance and your governance structures. I was fortunate enough to attend two of your, two summits you've held, on your, on the, on the, on the, on the grounds of UATX as the future grounds of UATX. and I was really struck last year with some conversations I had with Niall Ferguson about, about governance structures and especially this idea that was still, I think in his early phases about, a judicial body of some sort that would be of the university, but separate from it to protect some of the basic rights. Can you tell us about that idea? Yeah. Is that still happening or what's happened? It's now constitutionally mandated for constitution, which includes that. Fabulous. So interesting. Tell us about that.

Pano Kanelos: Again, it's, you know, trying to unpack some of the puzzles that we currently have in higher education. Academic freedom is essential to, you know, a vibrant intellectual institution. yet that kind of mechanism that we have for academic freedom today is highly compromised at most universities. The main mechanism is this thing called, we call tenure. All right. on the one end, we're discovering that tenure actually doesn't protect you anymore. If you are seen to be transgressive in the wrong ways. And on the other hand, the whole system of tenure is, it involves tenured faculty hand selecting their colleagues and hiring them and kind of running them through a six year gauntlet and then deciding if they're going to get tenure. So academic freedom might be achieved for those who have gained tenure, but at the front end, heterodox scholars, other thinking people are never allowed in the door. So we're, we're, we're, you know, we are completely, you know, the, the aperture is, is so narrow that the people who are hired and then who progressing at tenure are, you know, so it's a relatively narrow band of people. And like, I, I, I wouldn't want to overstate that. I don't mean to say that there's sort of this cabal of tenured faculty at every institution who are purposefully trying to exclude people who disagree with them. But I just think that's been what we've seen transpire over time.

John Tomasi: And I'll just, I'll just, I'll just have my own experience as a graduate student at Oxford in philosophy and political philosophy. I was very well aware early on which one of the great minds and that my mentors would want to work with me because of my unorthodox political views and which ones didn't. And I was fortunate to have a Marxist, Marxist professor, G.A. Cohen, who was really interested in free markets and wanted to talk to someone who was really serious about that. So I found some, but I was very aware that other luminaries might not take me under their wing, actually wouldn't take me under their wing, even if they would find me an interesting person in some other way. So there's, so there's a long, again, we shouldn't overstate it, but there is this long process of surveillance or checking through graduate school, through tenure, and then, and then it comes to the other side. But back on the, back on, on the governance structure.

Pano Kanelos: So back to that. So, you know, so the, the, like I said, the main mechanism for the preservation of academic freedom institutions is tenure. It's not working or not working as well as it should. So we thought, well, you know, we sort of looked to the American founding. We're thinking about systems of checks and balances, and we quite literally are founding documents for the, for the university or a constitution structured in a similar way. And it was Niall Ferguson who came up with the original idea of, you know, thinking about academic freedom and the mission of the university being protected by a judicial branch, right? So if you've articulated your mission and the principles of academic freedom constitutionally, then you need constitutional protections. You need some branch of, you know, some, some, some branch in your kind of governance order that can be, can adjudicate issues that come up. So what we have in our constitution is a, it's, we've got to come up with a better name. It's almost impossible to say adjudicative council.

John Tomasi: You need a better word. We need a better word. Something, we need something a little sexier than that. A judicative.

Pano Kanelos: Just supreme court sound. Again, we're always trying to find you as an adjudicative council that's going to be composed of people who are not part directly of the UATUX community, but who have, you know, some standing or quality that would, you know, qualify them to be part of this. They get constitutional scholars, experienced administrators, academics, you know, whatever it is. And, you know, sort of on a, you know, volunteer basis, they form a council so that if anybody, faculty, student, member of the staff feels at any point that their academic freedom has been impinged upon, or that we are acting in a way that's counter to the principles embedded in our constitution, they can bring the case before the council and their determination is binding upon the university. So, you know, if there's a scholar, let's say, who's up for contract renewal or something and feels that he or she has, you know, been, their contract hasn't been renewed because the university is uncomfortable with what they were teaching or what, you know, what they said on a podcast or what they wrote somewhere, they would bring that for the council and the council would judge. And again, this council's only objective is to objectively, you know, interpret what we've put in our own documents and hold us accountable. It's also a way that we're going to stay true to our mission. Because the question I get all the time, John, is that, you know, this is great. You're coming up with these, you know, these, you're, you're renewing these important principles in higher education, but if they, if we seem slippage at other institutions, how are you not going to kind of, you know, fall away from your originary principles? And so having this judicial branch that will hold us accountable. So, you know, let's say, let's say the board does something that seems to be counter to the principles that the institution's upholding. A student can bring a case before this council, and then the board is bound by that.

John Tomasi: That's fascinating. And the president would be bound too.

Pano Kanelos: Absolutely.

John Tomasi: Yeah, it's fascinating.

Pano Kanelos: Absolutely.

John Tomasi: So if I can just say this, this is, when I think about what you're doing and some of the innovations that you're coming up with, that's the one that strikes me most as most potentially radically disruptive. And there's this idea, as we both know from early America, the American founding, there was an idea before the constitution was written that as Gordon Wood puts it, that the virtue, that the, the virtue of the, sorry, the liberty of the many will be protected by the virtue of the few. The idea is we'll have a, we'll have a society where virtue will govern us. But then the founders realized virtue won't last for long without institutional structures. And what really strikes me about that idea from Austin about having, moving to a separation of power, institutional structure that's with, where intellectual freedom is protected institutionally, is that it throws into contrast, it throws into a new light, all the existing universities in a country. Because what it makes me realize is that at most universities, people are waiting for some virtuous president to arrive and be virtuous and remain virtuous, but fighting for free speech, having a university be a rough place of contention that's in the news all the time for kinds of bad things, as opposed to bending to the usual pressures and conforming and camping down controversy on the campus for, for survival and fundraising purposes. So it shows that Austin's model to me suggests that every university should, should maybe consider at least, or at least it has this, they all have this feature. They're relying on virtue solely, the virtue of the few to protect liberty of the many. And our founders thought that was a worrying way of going about doing business. But I think almost every university in the country is based on that different model.

Pano Kanelos: Yeah. Well, it's certainly self-evident to me that, as a college president, that I'm insufficiently virtuous to uphold, you know, all the things that need to be upheld at university. I mean, I strive for that, but I know my own vulnerabilities and weaknesses and, and, you know, I mean, we all stumble in, in the execution of our duties. Of course. And so I actually find it comforting that there is, you know, you know, this body that will help me course correct if there's a mistake. But because my ultimate allegiance is to the principles that we're intended to uphold, I very well may get things wrong along the way. My colleagues might, my, you know, I mean, it's, so it's reassuring to me to know that we have a kind of systemic way to check these things. You know, and I think the only way to really uphold a mission in any organization over time is to be involved in persistent self-reflection. So this is why you mentioned the summits that we hold every year, the First Principles Summit. Every single year we hold a summit where we invite people from outside the university, you and others, people from within. And we're really meant to take a deep dive into, are we upholding our principles? Like, what are we doing? And if we're not, what do we need to do the course correct? And if you know, this is part of your annual cycle, you know, you know, this is coming and then you sort of, you know, it causes you to reflect along the way about whether you're doing that. So these are the kinds of things that we put in place. I'll give you another example that we're developing. So we are going to be surveying our students when they arrive at the university around issues related to intellectual freedom, civil discourse, et cetera, you know, sort of take a kind of baseline survey and then survey them at the middle point of their time with us and the end point so that we can collect data, for example, on questions like, you know, do you feel like you have the ability to speak with an open mind in a classroom? Do you feel, how would you currently define what, you know, open inquiry is? How would you currently, you know, rate your commitment to robust civil discourse and see what, this is a way to measure our, our success as university. Are, when a student spends four years with us, are we getting better? Are there, is, is their commitment to these principles becoming stronger? Are we fulfilling? You have to know, you have to constantly reflect and check along the way, because if we're not fulfilling our mission, there's no point in being there.

John Tomasi: So one of your ideas, one of your, one of your aims is to, one of the educational aims is to deepen people's commitment to thinking for themselves, making their case with evidence.

Pano Kanelos: Yeah.

John Tomasi: It's fascinating. Oh, I mean, it feels strange for me to say it's fascinating because you might think that's the most obvious thing. You go to the university to learn about how many different views there are, how much you need to know, why it's important to use evidence, why you shouldn't just yell at each other, you should use argumentation and reason as best we're able. And yet it seems, it's striking again that at Austin that becomes an innovation.

Pano Kanelos: Yeah. I was going to say there are only, we have only two classroom rules. One is every opinion must be heard. Number two is every opinion must be backed up by evidence.

John Tomasi: Right.

Pano Kanelos: And you have to adhere to both of those.

John Tomasi: Fascinating.

Pano Kanelos: And, and that's fine. So, so you can't just say things, you have to provide your evidence, which allows other people to evaluate, you know, the, the thing that you're claiming.

John Tomasi: When you, when you start and you get running, it seems to me you'll want to have a faculty of diverse ideological viewpoints. Can you say something about that?

Pano Kanelos: Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, again, we will have failed if we become monochromatic politically, ideologically. so we're really, really interested in, in selecting faculty who, come to us with, you know, the broadest range of, perspectives. It's a, it's a difficult thing to achieve, right? Cause you can't think it's unfair when you're going to hire somebody to say, tell, well, tell me what your politics are. You know, tell me what you believe. Yeah. Do you believe in God or not? Not because I'm judging you because we need one of each, you know what I mean? So it becomes difficult. and so trying to figure out how you, you know, how you create that, you know, let's say mosaic is challenging. One of the ways I think to approach it is simply through the things you decide to teach, right? So the subjects that you're teaching in that are, you know, if they're sort of broad range, if you're teaching, if you're teaching everything from, you know, Adam Smith to Marx, you know, you're going to attract people who are expert in both of those areas, let's say. it, it is something that we, you know, I said, we're sort of learning and struggling. I don't think we've yet unlocked the key to that, like how you can just sort of spontaneously create intellectual pluralism. Right. Right.

John Tomasi: but it's, but it's an intention. Yes. It's fascinating. we're almost out of time. So I'm going to move to the light, the lightning round, I suppose. will there be tenure?

Pano Kanelos: No, that's a decision. Yeah. Oh, that was still up in the air to some degree. Interesting. Five year contracts, three year contracts, month by month, five year contracts in general, possibly three years for the first contract, five year contracts in general, renewable, the terms of the contract are set at the beginning. So as long as somebody fulfills their contract, you know, you'll teach these classes and you sort of agree on what their work is going to be over that time. It could be a project. As long as people are doing what they're meant to be doing, they're automatically renewed. but yeah, five year contracts for the most part.

John Tomasi: Yeah. And, and, and a big one. What about accreditation? Yeah. Do you need accreditation? Are you, what's, what's happening with all that?

Pano Kanelos: in the state of Texas, we have to seek accreditation. So, it's, that decision is taken out of our hands. The first step is what's called authorization. And that's where the state certifies you to be a degree granting institution. so that's the stage that we're at now. You become authorized. Then you're a university. And then the accreditation process begins because accreditors, what they're doing is they're assessing it and operating university. You can't be accredited before you start. It's like a bond rating agency. You actually have to be operating and then they assess you. And, you know, the sort of full process towards full accreditation takes anywhere between five and seven years usually, but you have a kind of provisional accredited status during that time. so we are seeking it. And why is accreditation important? Is it for, is it for student loans? What, what, what, why is that such a big obstacle? Yeah. So here's, I mean, there are many things you can't do if you're not accredited. And this is, I think part of the things, part of, part of the reason we don't have very many new universities is because of the hurdles put there. So students cannot have any federal loans, any, any Pell grants, work study, you know, federally backed loans until you're fully accredited. we can't even do things like we can't use dot edu. We can't, we can't go to, you know, these sort of, these fairs for, for student recruitment. we can't, I mean, there's a whole host of things that you can't do until you're accredited, yet you can't become accredited until you show that you can attract students and operate as university. I mean, it's, you know, it, this needs to be reformed. I'll just say that, because it really dissuades new institutions from starting, which I think on the whole, the lack of heterogeneity and higher education is one of the issues that we have. New institutions will bring fresh blood. I understand that part of the reticence in making it too easy is schools have taken advantage of this. Maybe some of the for-profit institutions have, you know, run roughshod over, you know, their mission and that, but we have to find a way to reform this because we're going to get through accreditation. I don't, I mean, we have the resources, we have the momentum, but man, it talk about, it's probably, you know, one of the top three most difficult things we have to do.

John Tomasi: That's fascinating. Pano, it's been such a pleasure having you on Heterodox Out Loud. Thank you so much.

Pano Kanelos: Oh, my pleasure. What a, what a great pleasure to be here. And I just, I just want to say for everybody who's listening, I mean, one of the reasons that UATX is UATX is because HxA is HxA. I mean, this institution as a kind of model for, what we can do to support academic freedom and intellectual pluralism and the success of HxA is, you know, has been inspirational to me personally and to everybody involved in our project. So I'm just thrilled to talk with you today.

John Tomasi: Thank you. And, you know, from the inside, from the outside, from every direction, working for, working to make good things, create good things in the world and a place for more, for more open inquiry can happen. Pano, thank you.

Pano Kanelos: My pleasure. Thanks, John.