University of Austin (UATX)
This webinar is a part of an Innovative Universities Global Webinar Series.
The University of Austin (UATX) is a new and innovative liberal arts university located in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2021, UATX will enroll its first undergraduate cohort in 2024. It stands out for its unique liberal arts approach, where students would spend the first two years focused on foundational studies like philosophy, literature, and history before diving deeper into areas such as STEM or political studies.
Dedicated to open inquiry and academic freedom, they launched “Forbidden Courses” in 2022; summer programs designed to tackle controversial topics that are often avoided in traditional academic settings.
UATX also offers programs like symposiums for high school students, which focus on critical thinking, exploring challenging ideas, creativity, and developing skills in debate and reasoning. UATX calls for those who value the pursuit of truth, civil discourse, and thoughtful and ethical innovation.
Pano Kanelos, Founding president of the University of Austin
- Dr. Kanelos, recognised by Forbes as one of higher education’s “academic entrepreneurs, served as the 24th President of St. John’s College, Annapolis, from 2017 to 2021.
- Kanelos earned a Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, an M.A. in Political Philosophy and Literature from Boston University, and a B.A. in English from Northwestern University.
- He led the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, a network of over 100 colleges and universities.
- He founded the Cropper Center for Creative Writing at the University of San Diego and is a noted Shakespeare scholar, having served as the resident Shakespearean in the Old Globe MFA Program and as the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Shakespeare Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago. He has authored and edited numerous works on Shakespeare.
