Why America Desperately Needs New Universities: Pano Kanelos

🔵 Try Epoch Times now: https://ept.ms/3Uu1JA5

This is the 30 minute TV version of Jan Jekielek’s interview with Pano Kanelos. The longer-form version was released on Epoch TV on March 20, 2025.

🔴 Watch the extended version of this episode: https://ept.ms/Y0320PanoKanelos

Over the years, Pano Kanelos, the founding president of the University of Austin, observed a growing “homogenization” and “bureaucratization” of higher education. He saw school programs becoming more and more similar, administrators outnumbering students and young adults being taught that the pathway to success is dependent on censorship and adherence to the status quo.

“We’ve created a culture of conformity at universities—a culture of conformity in higher education,” he says. “This just flattens out, I think, the potential for higher education to do great things and be dynamic.”

So, in 2021, along with a group of similarly concerned individuals, he started the University of Austin, a private liberal arts university in Texas that emphasizes curiosity, risk-taking, and moral agency.

“We’re trying to generate graduates who themselves are builders and creators. This is an important part of our curriculum,” says Kanelos.

Three years later, he is the president of a fully operational freshmen class and a diverse faculty.
“If anybody visits the University of Austin, they will see that it’s probably one of the most intellectually alive environments you'll ever encounter,” says Kanelos.

CHAPTER TITLES
0:00:01 - The Essence of Liberal Arts Education
0:00:08 - Challenging the Status Quo in Higher Education
0:01:10 - Potential Reforms in the Department of Education
0:03:15 - Daring to Think: Courage in Academia
0:07:27 - The Genesis of the University of Austin
0:09:35 - Shakespeare and the Pursuit of Knowledge
0:11:09 - Learning from History: Hubris and Nemesis
0:13:24 - Freedom of Conscience: The Core of Human Dignity
0:16:41 - The Limits of Liberation
0:18:09 - The First Freshman Class: A New Educational Approach
0:19:20 - Curriculum Design: An Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts Degree
0:22:09 - Invitation to Explore the University of Austin

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