What Harvard Can Learn from the University of Florida
The revival of liberal education in the guise of “civic” or “classical” education is a good thing for America.
John Harvard should look south.
Photographer: Heather Diehl/The Boston Globe/Getty Images
So much bad news has been emanating from US universities — from MAGA’s overreach today to the left’s overreach yesterday to a general sense of malaise — that it’s easy to miss the good news. Yet hope can be found amidst the gloom — mostly in the Red and Purple States, mostly in flagship state universities and mostly in the guise of “civic life and leadership.”
This year the University of Florida created 20 new tenured or tenure-track positions in its Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education. Though the school was founded only in 2022, it already boasts 53 faculty — including the renowned Renaissance scholar James Hankins who has decamped from Harvard for the 2026-27 academic year — and some 1,350 students with 1,500 expected in the fall semester.