Braniff 2017 News
The University of Dallas has always understood that good teaching goes beyond the simple transfer of information and has the power to shape individual human lives and characters. And, by a conservative estimate, UD alumni will pass on the wisdom of a people to approximately 40,000 students this year at public, private and charter schools. That's an appropriate legacy and a sober responsibility for a school who aims to form its students in virtue so that they may lead and serve their communities.
With more than 60 years of experience forming teachers, the university been hard at work on new ways to prepare teachers for work in this problematic and changing world.
In the most recent edition of Confluence, published by the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs, IPS student Stan Szczesny explores the theme of the Incarnation as it appears in Dante's Divine Comedy.
While the University of Dallas has long promoted the liberal arts, it proved its leadership in the international movement to revive classical education earlier this month, when Joshua Parens, Ph.D., dean of Braniff Graduate School, served as one of the plenary speakers at the European Liberal Arts Conference.
Before co-founding one of the nation's most recognized conservative consulting agencies in the Lone Star State, alumnus Ross Hunt, PhD '16, withdrew from his doctoral studies at the University of Dallas, shelving his dissertation on the verge of graduation -- to return nearly a decade later. As one of 14 recently announced Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellows, Hunt now joins the ranks of some of the nation's most influential professionals working in politics.
Among the new students entering Braniff Graduate School this fall, the University of Dallas will welcome Elisa Torres, whose passion for learning has become for her a way of life.
Braniff Graduate Student Sean Mixon Awarded 2017 Schweitzer Fellowship.
Andrea Wierzchowski, MPsy '15, has a heart for bringing counseling and mental health care options to disadvantaged communities. Wierzchowski's dedication and passion recently attracted attention on a national scale when she received a competitive scholarship from The Melanie Foundation for her work raising mental health awareness in traditionally underserved communities.
Last summer marked the beginning of the Classical Education Graduate Program and a partnership between the University of Dallas and Great Hearts Academies, a public charter system of academically rigorous, classical, liberal arts K-12 schools. This summer, the partnership continues to grow as the University of Dallas welcomed a second cohort of Classical education graduate students to campus.
Two University of Dallas doctoral candidates in the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts Institute of Philosophic Studies (IPS), Leta Sundet, MA '16, and Pavlos Papadopoulos, MA '14, were recently awarded the prestigious Richard M. Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).
By Commencement, nine students of the Institute of Philosophic Studies will have earned their Ph.D.'s after publicly defending their dissertations. With topics from Plato to More, Homer to Heaney, Ph.D. candidates have done extensive and impressive work on several of the most important facets of the Western intellectual tradition.
The education of a leader must be an education in living, observing and thinking. It requires the virtues of courage and perseverance and a host of others.
Brittany Keehan, a third grade teacher who has a strong background in both liberal and classical education, discovered University of Dallas when the Classical Education Graduate Program at the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts arose -- and has been glad to find an enthusiastic community of teachers with whom to share in the pursuit of this degree.
"What makes our pioneering graduate art program so unique... is that the school does not produce only one type of artist... Rather, each student pursues their own artistic vision with singular dedication to the process of creating art," said Gallery Manager Christina Haley.
This Monday, Feb. 13, winners of the University of Dallas 2017 Regional Juried Ceramics Competition will be announced from among 45 featured artists that were selected by guest juror Virginia Marsh.
"The light that shines from the University of Dallas is also found in the commitment of the University of Dallas faculty to the intellectual and moral virtues -- a commitment often not found in other institutions of higher education," said Provost Charles "C.W." Eaker of the year's faculty achievements during the 32nd King/Haggar Haggerty Faculty Award Ceremony.
