Hillsdale Hostels
About
Attend a Hillsdale Hostel, a learning vacation unlike any other. Spend time with Hillsdale professors who are experts in their fields, exploring the great ideas and principles that built and sustain our country. Discuss the ideas that have created more freedom and raised the hopes and expectations of millions, not only in this country but throughout the world.
Relive higher education as it used to be, in a place where it still is.
Hillsdale Hostels let you relive the experience of higher education as it used to be, in a place where it still is. It’s college life as you remember it: the sharing of insights, the give-and-take of lively discussion, the camaraderie of peers. It’s a fresh look at the enduring values of our society in the Hillsdale way, free of the trendy ideological clichés that dominate thinking on so many other campuses today. It’s a vacation unlike any you’ve had—the learning experience of a lifetime, to complement a lifetime of learning.
Hillsdale Hostels offer a week of exciting activities. Guests share intense discussions with Hillsdale faculty members and fellow program participants, delving deeply into the sources of American liberty. Guests are welcome to take advantage of varying opportunities for fun, recreation, and fitness in our state-of-the-art health education and sports complex. All seminars include delicious meals and top-rated accommodations.
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Upcoming Seminars
April 14-17, 2021
American Foreign Policy
Should American foreign policy be guided by a concern for supporting freedom around the world, by a concern for America’s national security, or by a combination of both? This seminar, held at Hillsdale’s Kirby Center in Washington, D.C., will consider the history and principles of American foreign policy, as well as recent and current controversies.
June 6-12, 2021
20th Century America
Over the course of the 20th century, the federal government grew dramatically—especially following the advent of the Great Society—as did divisions in American political and social life. Abroad, America emerged as the world’s greatest power, fighting and winning two World Wars and a Cold War. This seminar will consider the major political and historical developments and events of the previous century, including the rise of progressivism, liberalism, and the administrative state, the revolutions of the 1960s, and Communism and Nazism.
June 20-26, 2021
Constitutional Issues and Controversies
For 233 years, the American Constitution has served as a bulwark of limited government. Over the last century, its authority has been challenged by proponents of progressivism. This seminar will contrast the Founders’ view with the progressive view of topics such as the family, civil rights, free speech, foreign policy, and religious liberty.
Learn More about the “Constitutional Issues and Controversies” seminar
June 20-26, 2021
The Great Conversation in Western Literature
Great literature reflects and shapes the character of a civilization and of its citizens. Thus Homer was called the “schoolteacher of the Greeks.” Who have been the schoolteachers of America, and more generally, of the citizens of the West? This seminar will examine the great conversation in Western literature, beginning in ancient Greece and Rome and continuing through Renaissance Europe, Elizabethan England, and the United States.
Learn More about “The Great Conversation in Western Literature” seminar
July 11-17, 2021
Economic Theories and Controversies
This seminar will consider the theories of free market economics, theories that oppose the free market, and important economic controversies of the twentieth century and of today.
Learn More about the “Economic Theories and Controversies” seminar
July 11-17, 2021
The Civil War
The principal cause of the Civil War, fought from 1861 to 1865, was the crisis over slavery, which had its roots in the American Founding. This seminar will consider the Founders on slavery, the “positive good” school, the rise of sectionalism, the secession controversy, the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln, the Constitution in wartime, and Reconstruction.
July 25-31, 2021
History of Christianity
This seminar will consider the history of Christianity, beginning with the early Church and continuing through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and into the modern world.
August 6-9, 2021 & August 10-13, 2021
Historical Issues and Controversies
Held at the College’s Rockwell Lake Lodge in Luther, Michigan, this seminar will consider historical issues and controversies since the turn of the 20th century, including constitutionalism vs. statism, affirmative action, education, and terrorism.
Learn More about the “Historical Issues and Controversies” seminar
October 20 - 23, 2021
Civil Rights in America
Held at the Kirby Center in Washington, D.C., this seminar will consider civil rights in America from the American Founding to today.
Locations
We offer three locations to enjoy a Hillsdale Hostel – on the beautiful Hillsdale campus, nestled in the rolling farm country of southern Michigan; surrounded by the natural setting of our Rockwell Lake Lodge located at the G. H. Gordon Biological Station in Luther, Michigan; and in the heart of our nation’s capital at our Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship on Capitol Hill, just minutes from the Supreme Court, the Senate office buildings, and the historic Union Station.