Hillsdale College Senior Jack Shannon Receives 2015-2016 Young Scholars Award

September 28, 2015 – Hillsdale, MI

Hillsdale College congratulates senior John “Jack” Shannon on being named a 2015- 2016 Young Scholars Award winner by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). The award carries a $5,000 scholarship and an opportunity to present and defend his honors thesis at AEI in spring 2016.

“I’m very excited to be awarded this scholarship, not so much for my own benefit, but because of what it says about the kind of education Hillsdale College offers students,” said Shannon, a senior majoring in Latin and economics. “This research project is not something extra I’m doing outside of Hillsdale. This is just the kind of work that every Hillsdale student who writes an honors thesis does, and this award shows that the outside world views the scholarship we do here on a regular basis as worthy of recognition.”

“This award speaks to the strength of Hillsdale’s classical liberal arts curriculum,” Shannon, a native of Roanoke, Virginia, added. “The rigorous core education at Hillsdale and the interdisciplinary conversation it fosters can be successfully carried into the world of economics and public policy. In short, a classical liberal arts education really does prepare you for success.”

Shannon’s honors thesis focuses on the doctrine of the just price. Over the course of his senior year, Shannon will complete a translation and explication of Domingo Bañez’s commentary on the just price in his 1594 work, Decisiones de Jure et Justitia (Decisions on Right and Justice). The project will introduce a new understanding of Bañez’s theory and seek to contribute to modern discourse on the morality of free enterprise.

In addition to the tuition scholarship, Young Scholars receive an invitation to AEI’s 2016 Annual Dinner, a full complement of AEI publications, and opportunities to blog for AEI’s Values & Capitalism project, an initiative that seeks to advance the case for the morality of democratic capitalism.

“Jack is certainly among the most gifted and insightful students at Hillsdale right now,” history professor Matthew Gaetano said of Shannon. “His capacity for careful analysis and his linguistic competence—as well as his work ethic and intellectual humility—will allow him to bring the Western ethical tradition and modern notions of free exchange into dialogue.”

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