Core Texts and Enduring Questions for Today’s Students

ACTA’s Academic Affairs Fellow Veronica Bryant is joined by two distinguished educators and advocates for core texts in liberal education: Dr. Charlotte Thomas, Executive Director of the Association for Core Texts and Courses, or ACTC, and Dr. José María Torralba, board member of ACTC. Dr. Thomas is a Professor of Philosophy at Mercer University, where she is also the Director of the Great Books Program and Co-Director of the Thomas C. and Ramona E. McDonald Center for America’s Founding Principles, an ACTA Oasis of Excellence. Dr. Torralba is a Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the University of Navarra in Spain, where he used to direct the Core Curriculum Institute and currently heads the Civic Humanism Center for Character and Professional Ethics. He is the author of Una educación liberal. Elogio de los grandes libros (which translates to “A Liberal Education: In Praise of Great Books”). Together they discuss “core texts” or “Great Books”— what they are, how they are connected to core curriculum, and how they can bring a sense of meaning to today’s college students at colleges across America—and across the globe.