
About eight years ago, while still an undergraduate, I was selected for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s annual summer honors program, a weeklong immersion into the great books at a mountain resort in Southern Washington State. I delighted in sitting among the lush forests of the Columbia River Gorge and discussing the intricacies of the past with new friends and mentors. For a student like me, who was brand new to the serious study of the Western intellectual tradition, the program was a treat.