Debra Romanick Baldwin is Associate Professor of English at the University of Dallas, where she teaches Western literature from Homer and Virgil to Morrison and Stoppard. She is Past President of the Joseph Conrad Society of America, author of _The Inwardness of Things: Joseph Conrad and the Voice of Poetry_ (University of Toronto Press, 2024), and editor of _The Routledge Companion to Joseph Conrad_ (Routledge, 2024).

Mark Bauerlein is AN Editor at First Things and Professor of English Emeritus at Emory University, where he taught AFTER earning his PhD in English at UCLA in 1989. For two years (2003-05) he served as Director of the Office of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. His many books include Literary Criticism: An Autopsy, The Pragmatic Mind, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, and The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults. His commentaries and reviews have appeared in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Washington Post, Politico, cnn.com, Vox, Chronicle of Higher Education, and many other national periodicals. He has appeared on CBS News, Nightline, ABC’s 20/20, NPR, PBS Frontline, and BBC World Today.

Jason Bedrick is a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy. Previously he was the director of policy for EdChoice and a Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom.

Bedrick also served as a state legislator in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. His writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Fox News, Politico, the New York Post, National Review, National Affairs, the Washington Examiner, the Journal of School Choice, the Library of Law and Liberty, and Education Next among many other publications.

Bedrick earned his Master’s in Public Policy, with a focus in education policy, from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was a fellow at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife and five children.

Matt Beienburg is the Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute. He also serves as director of the institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy. Published in local and national outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Examiner, Fox News, and National Review, Matt’s work focuses on promoting educational freedom, parental rights, and greater civic appreciation of America’s founding principles. He is also the co-author of A is for the American Dream.

Prior to joining Goldwater, Matt served as a senior analyst at the Arizona Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC), where he regularly drafted fiscal estimates and briefed members of the state legislature on major policy initiatives in K-12 and higher education. He has also previously worked in the private sector for Mercer and in Washington, D.C. with Imagine Schools and the Center for Education Reform.

A native of Arizona, Matt earned a bachelor’s in economics from Claremont McKenna College and a master’s in public affairs from Princeton.

Inger S. B. Brodey is a professor in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as Associate Dean of the School of Civic Life and Leadership. She is a Jane Austen scholar and public humanist. Her most recent book, Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness (Johns Hopkins, 2024), has been positively reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly, The New Yorker, The Sunday Times, National Review, and others. She is also President of the Jane Austen Collaborative, Inc.; Principal Investigator of Jane Austen’s Desk; Founder and Director of the Jane Austen Summer Program; Founder of Jane Austen for Teachers, a continuing education program for k-12 teachers; and Founder and Director of Jane Austen & Co., a live web interview series.

Daniel Buck is a former English teacher, current assistant principal at a classical charter school, and a senior visiting fellow at both the Fordham Institute and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. His first book is What Is Wrong with Our Schools and his writing has appeared in various publications, including the Wall Street Journal, National Review Magazine, First Things, and National Affairs

David Carl joined the faculty at St. John’s College, Santa Fe in 2000. He holds a BA in philosophy from Pomona College, an MA in philosophy from the Claremont Graduate School, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Davis. In addition to teaching across the required undergraduate and graduate curricula in both Western Liberal Arts and Eastern Classics at St. John’s, he has served as Dean of Students, is a co-founder of the St. John’s College Film Institute, and leads Great Books seminars for adults in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and South America. He is currently the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs for the Santa Fe Campus of St. John’s. He has written monographs on aesthetics; cinema as a liberal art; the poetics of William Blake, Wallace Stevens, and Gertude Stein; and the cinematic work of Sergio Leone and David Lynch. He currently serves on the Board of ACTC (the Association of Core Texts and Courses).

Albert Cheng is an Associate Professor of education policy at the Department of Education Reform in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas, where he directs the Classical Education Research Lab and conducts empirical research about classical education. He teaches courses in education policy and philosophy of education. Dr. Cheng also serves on the governing board of Anthem Classical Academy in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Mary Chin (M.Ed., Arizona State University, M.Eng. M.I.T.) is a Professional Development Associate for Great Hearts working to support PD and instructional coaching throughout the network. Prior to this role, Mary was a Master Teacher in mathematics and an instructional coach. She also developed and ran PD and served on the Academic Leadership Team on her campus. She believes in instructional coaching because the autonomy it provides to teachers while also helping to improve learning outcomes through addressing behaviors and beliefs. Outside of education, Mary is passionate about ice hockey: playing in women tournaments in the Southwest and coaching her children’s youth teams in Gilbert, AZ.

Dr. Daniel B. Coupland is the Dean of the Graduate School of Classical Education and a Professor of Education at Hillsdale College.  He formerly served as the Dean of Faculty at Hillsdale.  He earned a B.A. in Spanish from Liberty University, an M.A. in Linguistics from Oakland University, and a Ph.D. in Education from Michigan State University. He began his career in education as a high school teacher. He has been at Hillsdale College since 2006, where he regularly teaches courses on English grammar, classical pedagogy, and classic children’s literature. In June of 2020, Hillsdale College released an online course for the public based on his popular Classic Children’s Literature class.  Dr. Coupland has received Hillsdale College’s Professor of the Year’s award and was awarded the Emily Daugherty Award for Teaching Excellence. He was a Resident Scholar at the C. S. Lewis Study Centre in Oxford, England, and the editor for the Journal of the Society for Classical Learning.  He currently serves as the Chairman of the K-12 Faculty Advisor Committee at Hillsdale College, and he sits on the advisory board for the Great Hearts Institute and the National Council of Classical Educators. His research focuses on general pedagogy, classic children’s literature, and English grammar instruction.  Dr. Coupland has written for a variety of publications including Academic Questions, Virtue, National Review, The Chicago Tribune, The Detroit News, The Washington Examiner, and The Journal of the Society for Classical Learning. He is a co-author of an English grammar curriculum titled Well-Ordered Language: The Curious Child’s Guide to Grammar published by Classical Academic Press.  He is the author of a book on teaching titled Tried & True: A Primer of Sound Pedagogy published by Hillsdale College Press.

Dr. David Diener works at Hillsdale College where he is an Assistant Professor of Education. Previously he spent fifteen years in K-12 private education, eleven of those in administration and eight as headmaster of classical Christian schools. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Society for Classical Learning and the Board of Academic Advisors for the Classic Learning Test. He is the Executive Director of the Alcuin Fellowship, a member of the National Council of Classical Educators, and regularly provides consulting services and teacher training to classical schools. He is the author of Plato: The Great Philosopher-Educator and has published articles on Plato, Kierkegaard, and various topics in philosophy of education. He also serves as the series editor for Classical Academic Press series Giants in the History of Education and is an associate editor for the journal Principia: a Journal of Classical Education. He holds a BA in Philosophy and Ancient Languages from Wheaton College as well as an MA in Philosophy, an MS in History and Philosophy of Education, and a dual PhD in Philosophy and Philosophy of Education from Indiana University.

Dr. Amber Dyer holds the Ph.D. in literature with distinction from the Institute of Philosophical Studies at the University of Dallas. She is a Fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture and a leadership consultant and executive coach for a Fortune 100 Company. She is the recipient of the James Sims Prize for Literature and has published on such diverse authors as Aristotle, Dostoevsky, and C.S. Lewis. Dr. Dyer currently serves as the Executive Headmaster of Great Hearts Irving Upper School and teaches and mentors leaders in Great Hearts America’s national Apex leadership program. Prior to joining Great Hearts, Dr. Dyer served as the Assistant Dean of Students at the University of Dallas, led student life, marketing, and college admissions teams at LeTourneau University, and taught over 2,000 university students the classics as a professor of classical literature, philosophy, business communications, and public speaking at University of Dallas, LeTourneau University, and Dallas Baptist University. More recently, Dr. Dyer served as a Senior Consultant for the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture’s Cowan Center for Education where she co-wrote the business plan for, fundraised, and mentored teachers and administrators to establish classical liberal arts Cowan Academies in traditional public schools. Dr. Dyer was Dr. Louise Cowan’s final mentee; she is a lecturer and contributor at the Cowan Center at the University of Dallas and speaks to audiences frequently on the transformational work of classical liberal education.

For over twenty-four years, Carrie Eben has championed classical education in both the private school classroom and homeschool arenas. She currently serves as founding board member at Sager Classical Academy and an adjunct instructor of humanities at John Brown University, both in Siloam Springs, AR. As a consultant, she develops and delivers customized workshops for administrators, teachers, and parents in both classical school and homeschool settings (www.classicaleben.com). Carrie is a CiRCE Institute Master teacher who holds a BSE in Intermediate Education from John Brown University, a MSEd in Curriculum and Instruction from Oklahoma State University and is a PhD student in the Humanities program at Faulkner University. Her first book about classical pedagogy, co-authored with Dr. Christopher Perrin, will be published by Classical Academic Press in 2025.

Video: https://player.vimeo.com/video/1016283238 

Dr. Eidt is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Director of the Humanities Program at the University of Dallas and teaches Spanish, German, Comparative Literature, Humanities and Classical Education courses. Having studied English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Latin in addition to her native German, at various points in her life, she is passionate about foreign language teaching and learning, and regularly teaches courses on foreign language pedagogy. She also works with UD’s classical curriculum team and has offered professional development workshops at various K-12 schools on the art of narration, Socratic Seminar, grammar and sentence diagramming, as well as Latin and modern foreign language pedagogy. As part of her work with the classical curriculum team, she is currently writing UD’s K-5th grade curriculum Latin through Stories, a near-immersion, input-based curriculum that focuses on meaningful language acquisition through communicating ideas and stories.

Dr. Erik Ellis is Assistant Professor of Classical Education at the University of Dallas. After graduating from the University Scholars Program at Baylor University with concentrations in Greek and Latin, Dr. Ellis received an MA in History from the same institution and served as a middle school and high school Latin teacher for five years in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Along with Latin, Dr. Ellis was privileged to teach history, logic, and French, the last of which had a decisive effect on his teaching of Latin. Two years into his teaching career, Dr. Ellis began researching and investigating communicative language pedagogy and its application to classical languages. After attending and offering workshops with the Oklahoma Foreign Language Teachers Association, SALVI, and Fr. Reginald Foster, Dr. Ellis left secondary teaching to continue his education. He received an MA in Classics, a Master of Medieval Studies, and a Doctorate in Medieval Studies at the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame and studied at the Polis Institute and the Vatican Library in Rome. One of his research specializations was the history of education with a focus on the history of classical language teaching. Upon graduation, he worked for a year at Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures, where he received a certificate in Second Language Acquisition Theory and Methodology. Following this, he taught Latin, Greek, and general humanities courses at Universidad de los Andes in Santiago, Chile, and Hillsdale College before moving to his current role in the program in Classical Learning at the University of Dallas.

Dr. Vigen Guroian retired 1n 2015 from his endowed position as Professor of Religious Studies in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia and was the recipient of the University of Virginia Student Council Distinguished Teaching Award for 2010-2011. He is the author of eleven books including Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classical Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination (2nd expanded edition 2023, Rallying the Really Human Things: Moral Imagination in Politics, Literature, and Everyday Life and The Orthodox Reality: Culture, Theology, and Ethics in the Modern World.He has contributed nearly 250 articles to journals, magazines, books, encyclopedias, and newspapers on a wide range of subjects including culture, politics, literature, ethics, liturgy, marriage and family, and gardening. Since his retirement Dr. Guroian has given most of his energies to the classical schooling revolution. In 2019, he received The Russell Kirk Paideia Prize from the CIRCE Institute for a lifetime of cultivating virtue. Dr. Guroian is Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University, Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, Distinguished Fellow of the John Jay Institute, and Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum

Junius Johnson is a writer, teacher, speaker, independent scholar, and musician. His work focuses on beauty, imagination, and wonder, and how these are at play in the Christian and Classical intellectual traditions. He is the executive director of Junius Johnson Academics, through which he offers innovative classes for both children and adults that aim to ignite student hearts with wonder and intellectual rigor. An avid devotee of story, he is especially drawn to fantasy, science fiction, and young adult fiction. He performs professionally on the french horn and electric bass. He holds a BA from Oral Roberts University (English Lit), an MAR from Yale Divinity School (Historical Theology), and an MA, two MPhils, and a PhD (Philosophical Theology) from Yale University. He is the author of 5 books, including The Father of Lights: A Theology of Beauty, On Teaching Fairy Stories, and the Medieval history textbook, History of the Early Middle Ages. An engaging speaker and teacher, he is a frequent guest contributor to blogs and podcasts on faith and culture. He is co-host of The Classical Mind podcast and is a member of The Cultivating Project.

Video: https://player.vimeo.com/video/1012889398

Jessica Kaminski, M.Ed. has been helping educators for over 16 years as a classroom teacher, consultant, author and coach. She is a certified teacher who has trained schools all over the world in Singapore teaching first as a math consultant with Math in Focus and then with her own company, Math with Purpose. She is the author of Math in Focus 2020 Third Grade Teacher’s Edition and the co-author of Primary Mathematics 2022 Grades 2-5 Teacher’s Guides. Jessica believes in providing customized professional development for schools to meet the needs of our diverse learners.

Meghan Muyanja has been a pioneer and the driving force in the development of John Adams Academy’s online classical program. Mrs. Muyanja has served in a variety of roles at the academy throughout her 10 years of service, including as Assistant Headmaster, Teacher, Grade Level Lead, and office support. She currently serves as the Academy’s Director of Elementary Curriculum and Instruction and the Director of the online program. She has extensive experience in John Adams Academy’s American Classical Leadership Education model and holds a master’s degree in classical pedagogy. Mrs. Muyanja is an avid reader of the classics and has experienced firsthand the transformation of the mind and heart that comes through the truth, goodness, and beauty embedded in the classics. She has spent her entire career assisting students and families including her own five children in embarking on the classical journey themselves.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, studies and provides commentary on American politics. His work focuses on how America’s political order is being upended by populist challenges, from the left and the right. He also studies populism’s impact in other democracies in the developed world.From 2019–2023, Mr. Olsen was an opinion columnist for The Washington Post, where he wrote daily pieces focusing on politics, populism, foreign affairs and American conservative thought. He is also the author of The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue-Collar Conservatism and The Four Faces of the Republican Party, co-authored with Dante Scala.Mr. Olsen taught as the Thomas W. Smith Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Arizona State University for the Winter/Spring 2023 semester. He has taught at Villanova University, the Catholic University of America, and the Hillsdale College D.C. Graduate Studies Program.Mr. Olsen was previously an editor at UnHerd.com and a regular contributor to American Greatness, City Journal, and World Magazine. Mr. Olsen’s work has been featured in many prominent publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The Guardian, and The Weekly Standard.

Prior to joining the University of Dallas, William worked in Catholic education for over twenty years as a teacher and principal at both the elementary and high school levels. A graduate of the St. Ignatius Institute’s Catholic Great Books Program at the University of San Francisco where he majored in English and Philosophy, William has led and assisted schools transitioning to a classical vision, designed curriculum for grades K-12, and led teacher formation programs that immerse participants in the liberal arts tradition of cultivating the imagination, faith, virtue, and wisdom.

Robert Pondiscio is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and an affiliate of AEI’s James Q. Wilson Program in K–12 Education Studies, where he focuses on K–12 education, curriculum, teaching, school choice, and charter schooling.

Before joining AEI, Mr. Pondiscio was a policy analyst and education reform expert at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank. He previously worked for the Core Knowledge Foundation and as an adviser and civics teacher at Democracy Prep Public Schools. Mr. Pondiscio became interested in education policy issues when he started teaching fifth grade at a struggling South Bronx public school in 2002. Before that, he worked in journalism for 20 years, including in senior positions at Time and BusinessWeek.

Mr. Pondiscio is the author of many books, including “How the Other Half Learns: Equality, Excellence, and the Battle over School Choice” (Avery, 2019), which is about Success Academy Charter Schools and was widely reviewed and praised.

Andrew Porwancher earned degrees from Brown and Northwestern before completing his PhD in history at Cambridge. Currently, he serves as a Professor of Constitutional History at Arizona State University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. His books include The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton (Princeton University Press, 2021), winner of the Journal of the American Revolution Book-of-the-Year Award; and The Devil Himself (Oxford University Press, 2016), which was adapted for the stage at Dublin’s historic Smock Alley Theatre. Porwancher’s fifth book, American Maccabee (Princeton University Press, 2025) will appear this spring. He previously served as the May Fellow at Harvard, the Horne Fellow at Oxford, and the Garwood Fellow at Princeton. In 2023, Porwancher won a national prize for mentorship “Craig L. Brians Award” from the American Political Science Association.  His writing has appeared in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal.

Andrew Seeley is co-founder and President of the Boethius Institute for the Advancement of Liberal Education. He also serves as the Director of Advanced Formation for Educators at the Augustine Institute. He received a Licentiate from the Pontifical Institute in Medieval Studies in Toronto and a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto. Over his three decades as a Tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California, Dr. Seeley completed teaching every subject in its demanding, integrated Great Books curriculum. He is co-author of Declaration Statesmanship: A Course in American Government. Desiring to share his love of learning and teaching, Dr. Seeley co-founded the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education in 2005, where he served as Executive Director for 12 years, and continues to contribute as a board member and a Faculty Consultant. He became Executive Director of the Arts of Liberty Project in 2021. In recognition of his work in the renewal of liberal education, he has been named as the 2023 recipient of the Circe Institute’s Paideia Prize.

Chris Swanson, a founder of Gutenberg College, and tutor since 1994, became the second president in 2016. He has a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oregon. He focuses his energies on the philosophy of science and knowledge and its role in education.

C. Bradley Thompson is the Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, founder of the Lyceum Scholars Program, and Professor of Political Philosophy. He received his Ph.D. at Brown University, and he has been a visiting professor at the Harvard, Princeton, and the University of London.Thompson has published several books, including What America Is: The Moral Logic of the American Revolution and Other Essays (2023), America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration that Defined It (2019), Freedom and School Choice in American Education (2011), Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea (2010), Anti-Slavery Political Writings 1833-1860: A Reader (2003), The Revolutionary Writings of John Adams (2000), and the award-winning John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty (1998).Over the course of the last three decades, Thompson has been a proponent of the classical education movement, and he is recognized as one of the leading voices in the education Abolitionist movement.Professor Thompson blogs and writes weekly at theredneckintellectual.com and daily at edwatchdaily.com. He is also the founder and publisher of Loco-Foo Press.Thompson and his wife homeschooled their three children for 18 years. He supports Clemson football and Arsenal soccer club.

Erin Davis Valdez is the Executive Director of the Incubator of the Center for Education and Public Service at the University of Austin. She has been passionate about the transformational power of education all her life, having been given the gift of being homeschooled. She taught for over a decade in Austin-area schools and served as an assistant principal at a charter school in Lewisville. These experiences have given her the opportunity to see first-hand how students can thrive when they have excellent options.Valdez joined the Charles Koch Foundation in 2015 where she helped to grow a portfolio focused on helping innovative K12 programs grow through higher education and other partnerships. At the Texas Public Policy Foundation, she conducted research on outcomes-based funding at the secondary and postsecondary levels, civics education, and workforce programs in Texas. She has testified before the Texas and U.S. legislatures and shepherded legislation expanding educational choices for K12 and postsecondary students.Valdez earned an M.A. in Classics from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a B.A. in Classical Studies from Hillsdale College. She studied in Athens, Greece her junior year and worked as an excavator at the Agora archaeological site for three seasons.Valdez has lived in the Austin area (on and off) since 1990, which counts as “native” these days. She enjoys cooking, reading, volunteering, and spending time with her husband Jeremy, her family, friends, and cocker spaniel, Scoops.

Video: https://player.vimeo.com/video/1017277013 

Kyle Washut, a Wyoming native, has been with Wyoming Catholic College since its inception. Growing up in Casper, Wyoming, he worked in nuclear missile silos and coal mines during his teenage years, receiving an AA in Political Science and a second in Spanish from Casper College in 2003. While in Casper, he studied under two of WCC’s eventual founders, Dr. Robert Carlson and Fr. Robert Cook, and began his journey toward Wyoming Catholic by serving as a dishwasher at the annual Wyoming School for Catholic Thought, where the idea for the College was first proposed. He graduated from Thomas Aquinas College in 2007 with a B.A. in Liberal Arts, and returned to Wyoming (and Wyoming Catholic) as the inaugural Assistant Dean for Student Life—a position he held until departing in the Fall of 2009 to pursue a graduate degree in Sacred Theology from Austria’s International Theological Institute (ITI). While in Austria, he continued to work for the College, coordinating its inaugural high-school (PEAK) and adult education (WSCT) summer programs, before returning as a full-time professor in early 2012. Washut has taught across the College’s curriculum since his return—theology and philosophy, as well as her distinctive Trivium and Humanities courses. In addition to serving as Visiting Associate Professor of Patristics and Ecclesiastical History at St. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, he has worked closely with a number of the College’s Administrative offices, including Admissions, Advancement, and the Outdoor Leadership Program (OLP). In the Fall of 2019, he was named Academic Dean, and served in that capacity for four years before being named President in August, 2023.

Andrew J. Zwerneman is co-founder and president of Cana Academy. He blogs weekly at www.canaacademy.org and is the author of History Forgotten and Remembered (2020) and The Life We Have Together: A Case for Humane Studies, A Vision for Renewal (2022). Andrew is the narrator for the film series, HISTORY250.