Ayn Rand, the College?

North Carolina may be the home of a college “applying the philosophy of Ayn Rand,” if organizers, including two Duke faculty members, get their way:

Founders College has submitted an application projecting a fall 2007 start and an enrollment of 500, said Michelle Howard-Vital, associate vice president of academic affairs for UNC General Administration.

Eric Daniels of Durham filed the request, Howard-Vital said. She identified Daniels as a faculty member at Duke University. The Duke faculty directory lists him as a visiting professor in the sociology department.

Daniels, contacted Monday by The Herald-Sun, declined to answer questions “because of the nature of the project.”

“I just have no comment at this time, thank you,” he said.

Stories about a possible college have been circulating in Oxford for weeks. …

As proposed, Founders College would offer an associate of arts degree and a bachelor of arts in liberal arts.

Oxford, N.C. certainly has the right name for a college town, but is the world really clamoring for Objectivist higher education? While there may be a ready source of disgruntled faculty from another start-up college just to the north, I’m just not sure where the students are going to come from.

þ: Division of Labour.

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Chris Lawrence
About Chris Lawrence
Chris teaches political science at Middle Georgia State University in Macon, Georgia. He has a Ph.D. in political science (with concentrations in American politics and political methodology) from the University of Mississippi. He began writing for OTB in June 2006. Follow him on Twitter @lordsutch.