Welcome to the Gaede Institute!

Welcome to the Gaede Institute’s website. Here you’ll find information on our programs for strengthening liberal arts education and for providing liberal arts learning opportunities to the many communities Westmont intersects with beyond the academy. With the growing complexity of real world problems there is an ever greater need for people who bring a range of perspectives to social issues, and who recognize that their education is connected to the whole of their lives: their community involvement, their political engagement, their spiritual development, as well as their profession. We hope you’ll find the resources of the Gaede Institute helpful as together we seek to learn and teach for a complex world.
- Chris Hoeckley, Director
The Liberal Education of Students of Faith
The Ninth Annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts
February 27-28, 2009 • Santa Barbara, California
Due to the impact of the Tea Fire on campus, this year's Conversation on the Liberal Arts has been canceled. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
We plan on hosting this important Conversation in February 2010. Thank you for your interest, and we hope you will consider joining us at future conversations.
Learning in a Time of Politics:
Liberal Arts Education and Political Engagement
The Eighth Annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts
February 15 - 16, 2008 • Santa Barbara, California
How do we reach one of the crucial goals of liberal arts education -- to help students become critical, informed, and engaged participants in our shared political life -- in a climate that favors sound bites over analysis, and debates over deliberation?
Faculty and academic administrators from across the country recently met to consider these questions. Pulling from her extensive work in higher education and political formation, Julie Reuben, Harvard historian of education, provided the catalyst for our conversation.
***Read the Papers from the Conversation here.***
***Listen to the Conversation here. ***
***Continue the Conversation here.***