Fourth Freshman Foundation Lecture Addresses Freedom in Relation to Liberal Arts Education
HILLSDALE, Mich. — Hillsdale College hosted its fourth Freshman Foundation Lecture and luncheon at the Searle Center on March 22. Paul Moreno, dean of social sciences and professor of history, offered a lecture to the freshman class on freedom. Moreno discussed how freedom relates to the liberal arts education by training free, self-governing individuals.
“We offer a liberal education not because it is useful, but it is useful nevertheless,” Moreno said. “The good is always useful. Similarly, we seek good health for its own sake, though it is useful for other things as well. A liberally educated person will be able to take up any profession, just as a healthy man is able to perform physical deeds that an unhealthy man cannot.”
Moreno related the theories of liberty of John Winthrop, Petrarch, C.S. Lewis, and other great writers and thinkers to the mission of Hillsdale College as a trustee of the Western philosophical and theological tradition.
“Tracing to Athens and Jerusalem, it is a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law,” Moreno said.
Moreno’s headshot and biography can be viewed here.
About the Freshman Foundation Lecture Series
Hillsdale College launched the Freshman Foundation Lecture Series in the fall of 2021. The series addresses the four purposes, or pillars, of learning, character, faith, and freedom of Hillsdale College in student life. The series includes four lectures by Hillsdale College faculty deans over the course of the academic year. All lectures take place in the College’s Searle Center and include a complimentary lunch for all freshman students.