Veritatis Splendor
Our Speakers Series will return in the 2024-25 school with six new speakers. Please refer to the schedule of events below.
Dr. Wilfred McClay
Recovering the Great American Story
Tuesday, February 25, 2025 in the Sojourner Truth Auditorium
Event starts at 6 PM with a reception in the Old Narthex, Siebenthaler Campus. Talk to follow at 7 PM in the Sojourner Truth Auditorium.
Recovering the Great American Story
- Why do we need to know our history?
- What is unique about historical knowledge? How is it different from other ways of knowing?
- What does it mean to think of history as a story?
- Why should a historian be a recording angel, rather than a hanging judge?
- Why is history the most humanizing of subjects?
About the Speaker
Dr. Wilfred M. McClay is Professor of History at Hillsdale College, where he holds the Victor Davis Hanson Chair of Classical History and Western Civilization. His book The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America received the 1995 Merle Curti Award of the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American intellectual history. Among his other books are The Student’s Guide to U.S. History; Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Policy in America; Figures in the Carpet: Finding the Human Person in the American Past; Why Place Matters: Geography, Identity, and Public Life in Modern America; and the award-winning bestseller, Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story.
He served for eleven years on the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory board for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is currently is a member of the U.S. Commission on the Semiquincentennial, which has been charged with planning the celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Academy of Education, and received the Bradley Prize in 2022. He is a graduate of St. John’s College (Annapolis) and received his Ph.D. in History from the Johns Hopkins University.
About the Veritatis Splendor Speakers Series
Through the Veritatis Splendor Speakers Series (Latin for “Splendor of Truth”), CLASSICAL will be inviting nationally recognized speakers to address thought-provoking topics related to our mission of promoting moral character and civic virtue through a content-rich education in the classical liberal arts and sciences. The aim of the speaker series is not merely to deepen the knowledge and involvement of CLASSICAL’s immediate school community, but also to educate and engage the community at large.
2024-25 Veritatis Splendor Speakers
Feb. 25, 2025 – Dr. Wilfred McClay – Recovering the Great American Story
March 8, 2025 – Christopher Rufo – Restoring Integrity to Public Education
Previous Veritatis Splendor Speakers
Dr. Jordan Wales – Artificial Intelligence, the Human Person, and Education
Dr. Dwight Lindley – A Christmas Carol to Re-Enchant the World
Dr. David Whalen – Character and Virtue: Learning to Love What’s Right
Dr. Stephen Smith – Love and Fire: Education of Soul in Dante’s Divine Comedy
Dr. Leonard Sax – Tik Tok Ate My Daughter, and My Son Won’t Stop Playing Video Games
Dr. Larry Arnn – The Renaissance of American Classical Education
Dr. Jeffrey Lehman – Quadrivial Pursuits: Why Classical Education Needs the Quadrivium
Dr. Stephen Smith – Why Everyone Should Study Shakespeare
Mr. Andrew Zwerneman – The Confidence of Culture: Seeing What the West Frees us to See
Mr. Patrick Whalen – The Role of the Body in Education
Dr. Daniel Coupland – Education and the Cultivation of the Moral Imagination
Mr. Antonin Scalia – What My Grandfather Taught Me About the Constitution
Location: Sojourner Truth Auditorium – 170 Siebenthaler Ave. Cincinnati, OH 45215