King’s Announces ISI Partnership

The King's College is pleased to announce its partnership with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) to provide the online, for-credit option for each of six courses in the Intercollegiate Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program (IPPE), which will provide America's most intellectually curious students with a valuable framework for seriously encountering the big ideas that undergird a free society.

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The King’s College is pleased to announce its partnership with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) to provide the online, for-credit option for each of six courses in the Intercollegiate Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program (IPPE), which will provide America’s most intellectually curious students with a valuable framework for seriously encountering the big ideas that undergird a free society.

ISI created the IPPE after a two-year consultation with more than 100 leading professors, developing an integrated, high-quality, exciting six-course program designed to expose students to timeless core concepts through an interdisciplinary approach. Through its involvement, King’s will extend key elements of its core curricular content to a much larger national—and even international—student audience. The centerpiece of the IPPE Program consists of six core courses taught in the subject areas of politics, philosophy, and economics; those three disciplines form the basis of the core curriculum at The King’s College, as well as its PPE major.

“We are honored by the ISI’s recognition of the affinity between the mission of The King’s College, the centrality of our PPE program to that mission, and this exciting new initiative, and we look forward eagerly to working together to bring it to full fruition,” said Dr. Mark Hijleh, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty at King’s.

Beginning in the summer of 2016, ISI and King’s will develop and deliver co-branded courses over a three-year period. The first course, “How Markets Work,” will be available in the Spring 2017 semester, with Dr. Gregory Alan Thornbury, President of The King’s College, serving as the on-screen video host. At least one King’s faculty member in each appropriate discipline will serve as a consultant to the project. Students in these IPPE courses who desire course credit will register as students at King’s, pay tuition, and complete each course online with other class members and a King’s instructor over a fall, spring, or summer session. Credit may be transferred back to the student’s home institution if approved.

“Students are looking for cost- and time-effective ways to side-step politically correct universities and learn the timeless wisdom of Western Civilization,” said ISI President Christopher Long. “By partnering with The King’s College, ISI will answer the demand for a high-quality, interdisciplinary and flexible humanities education that prepares today’s college students to be successful, happy and informed citizens.”

“The ISI PPE curriculum is exactly what young people need today if they are going to grow up and be responsible citizens and discerning consumers,” said Mark Bauerlein, Professor of English at Emory University. “But however impressive are the contents of the curriculum, the real breakthrough is the logistical model ISI has developed. A contained, intensive unit of instruction that fits easily into a young person’s schedule and pocketbook is the way of the educational future. Schools that are early adopters of it will appear twenty years later to be those with the acumen to recognize a breakthrough instructional model when they see it.”

“The PPE movement is retaking the intellectual high ground, and restoring the classical canon
to its rightful place at the center of the undergraduate curriculum,” said Michael Munger, Director of the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics program at Duke University. “Not surprisingly, ISI is in the vanguard of this revolution, and I’m proud to be part of ISI’s efforts. In many ways, this revolution is student-driven: Our young people are tired of having their time wasted on whatever flavor of ‘Indignation Studies’ happens to have caught the fancy of the professoriate this year. Students yearn for readings of substance, and questions of enduring importance, and ISI delivers those, as it always has.”

“Politics, philosophy, and economics, when studied in concert with each other, address the questions that shape life most powerfully and direct it most fruitfully,” said David Innes, Chairman of the Program in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at King’s.


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