Higher Education at Its Best: A Conversation with John Tomasi

Exploring the core values the two organizations share, including free speech and open inquiry, the importance of those values within the academy and beyond, and Tomasi’s vision for the future of American higher education.

John Tomasi came to Heterodox Academy from Brown University, where he held the position of Romeo Elton 1843 Professor of Natural Theology and taught and wrote about political theory and public policy. At Brown, Tomasi was twice awarded university prizes for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He founded and directed the Political Theory Project, an independent research center at Brown that supports scholarship and encourages political dialogue on campus.

Tomasi earned his bachelor’s degree from Colby College and did his graduate work in political philosophy at the University of Arizona (M.A.) and Oxford University (B.Phil., D.Phil.). He has held positions at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton, the Department of Philosophy at Stanford, and the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard.

The Institute for Humane Studies supports and partners with professors to promote the teaching and research of classical liberal ideas and to advance higher education’s core purpose of intellectual discovery and human progress.