Tom Bowden“A political battle is merely a skirmish fought with muskets; a philosophical battle is a nuclear war.”
Those words by Ayn Rand helped inspire the Ayn Rand Institute’s “biggest initiative so far,” announced by CEO Tal Tsfany at the 2021 Objectivist Summer Conference in Austin, Texas: the Ayn Rand University.
An “educational organization that is going to be growing over the years and decades to come,” the ARU will leverage the Institute’s unique strengths. The vision, Tsfany said, is to create new generations of what Ayn Rand called “New Intellectuals.”
Tsfany’s talk outlined the vision for ARU and the plans for its growth. The Institute’s Objectivist Academic Center will be repurposed as a two-year undergraduate-level program in Objectivism and philosophy, with an introduction to methods of objective communication and writing in Year Two.
For individuals with potential to become Objectivist scholars, the Objectivist Graduate Center will offer intensive, advanced courses in many different subjects, such as an advanced seminar on Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, courses on morality and moral judgment, and advanced writing and editing.
Those completing these programs and aiming for careers in philosophy or the core humanities will have available three general career paths: (1) working for ARI as teaching assistants, junior fellows or faculty members; (2) working as intellectuals in academia and think tanks or working independently, or (3) becoming “intellectual professionals” in fields such as education, law and psychology.
The ARU initiative calls for expanding the faculty, hiring teaching assistants, and recruiting junior fellows to join the Institute’s staff — to keep pace with growing student enrollment.
“Since its founding in 1985, ARI’s strategy has always been to attract bright young minds to Rand’s works and ideas and to offer advanced training in Objectivism,” said ARI’s vice president of education, Keith Lockitch. “But Tal Tsfany’s new vision for ARU represents a new and deeper understanding of how to implement that strategy by focusing on our core strengths as an organization.”
Learn more about the Ayn Rand University by watching Tsfany’s talk, available here:
Tara Smith
Ibis Slade
