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University of Austin

The University of Austin (UATX) is a private nonsectarian liberal arts university located in Austin, Texas. The university has established a campus in downtown Austin's Scarbrough Building, and will enroll its first undergraduate cohort in the fall of 2024.

The University of Austin plans to be accredited between 2028 and 2031. Students are not eligible for federal financial aid, but the founding class has been offered free tuition. The initial faculty and students are expected to be mostly those holding conservative and libertarian views.

History

According to the school's website, the University of Austin was conceived in May 2021 when venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, St. John's College president Pano Kanelos, scholar Niall Ferguson, and journalist Bari Weiss met in Austin, Texas. The proposal was publicized six months later in an article by Kanelos in Weiss's Substack newsletter Common Sense (now The Free Press).

Founding faculty fellows included Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Hoover Institution), and Kathleen Stock. Other advisors included former Harvard President Lawrence Summers, former ACLU President Nadine Strossen, and former president of the American Enterprise Institute Arthur Brooks. UATX reported that they were seeking accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission.

In November 2021, the university's website listed Robert Zimmer, Larry Summers, John Nunes, Gordon Gee, Steven Pinker, Deirdre McCloskey, Leon Kass, Jonathan Haidt, Glenn Loury, Joshua Katz, Vickie Sullivan, Geoffrey Stone, Bill McClay, and Tyler Cowen as advisors to the university. Writing in The Week, Samuel Goldman noted that no prominent members of the board of advisors had resigned their academic appointments to join the UATX faculty, suggesting that their "lack of personal commitment casts doubt on the value of their support." Kathleen Stock clarified that her role was not full-time, and that she would not move to Austin. Pinker said that although he was part of the advisory board, he had no plans to teach there, and resigned from the board. Gee said "Serving in an advisory capacity does not mean I believe or agree with everything that other advisers may share. I do not agree other universities are no longer seeking the truth nor do I feel that higher education is irreparably broken."

On November 11, 2021, Robert Zimmer announced his resignation from the university board, saying that UATX had made statements about higher education that "diverged very significantly from my own views". UATX apologized for creating "unnecessary complications" for Pinker and Zimmer for not clarifying what their advisory roles entailed.

According to the Austin Chronicle, the University of Austin planned to have 3,000 to 4,000 students by 2024.

On June 9, 2022, the University of Austin was taking applications for its "Forbidden Courses" program with two-week-long sessions in the old (pre-1954) Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Despite the name of the university, UATX first offered classes in Dallas, Texas and not Austin. Conservative philanthropist Harlan Crow provided office space in Dallas for UATX. Crow is a major donor to the university. On July 6, 2022, the school announced that Richard Dawkins had joined its advisory board. In December 2022, board member Heather Heying resigned stating that the school was not adequately invested in scientific inquiry and "does not represent my scientific and pedagogical values."

In October 2023, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board gave the university certification to award degrees. The school lacked accreditation at that time. The two-year certification to grant degrees can be extended for up to eight years, by which time it must achieve accreditation to continue. A month later, UATX began accepting applications for its first four-year undergraduate cohort enrolling in Fall 2024, and established a campus in Austin's Scarbrough Building. The entire class of 100 students would receive full four-year scholarships, paid from private donations the university had raised. By November 2023, UATX had reportedly raised $200 million from 2,600 donors and received over 6,000 inquiries from potential faculty. In Bloomberg, UATX reported a surge in interest from donors "horrified by the response at top-tier universities to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel."

In June 2024, the University of Austin announced a $5 million bitcoin endowment with cryptocurrency platform Unchained. In March, UATX reported that they had formed a student debate society, the Austin Union, modeled after the Oxford Union.

Business plan

According to President Kanelos, the founding 2024 class is expected to enroll 100 students, growing to 200 students in 2025 and 1,000 students in 2028. Most administrative and support jobs will be outsourced to Guatemala to keep costs down. Students will share apartments where they will do their own cooking. The student body is expected to start their own clubs and activities.

Constitution

The University of Austin Constitution does not allow for a faculty senate or faculty tenure. Debate is encouraged but protests cannot interfere with education for all students.

Mission

The stated mission of the University of Austin is to prepare thoughtful and ethical innovators, builders, leaders, public servants and citizens through open inquiry and civil discourse.

Academics

UATX plans to be a selective institution using standardized testing. It will not to use race, gender, or class in their admissions decisions, stating this is because the school "stands firmly against that sort of discrimination". The school does not plan on establishing traditional majors. According to President Kanelos, the undergraduate program at will start with two years of general education requirements that include classes in philosophy, history and literature and students will take courses in the same sequence. Students will become fellows in particular areas of study during their third and fourth year. Jacob Howling is the Provost.

Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees includes Joe Lonsdale, Pano Kanelos, Scott Malkin, Niall Ferguson, Teri Andresen, and Bari Weiss.

Reception

The initial announcement of the project received some positive reception, including praise from Law & Liberty for ushering in "a new era in educational reform," and applause from The New Criterion for its efforts to "keep that old flame of free inquiry alive." New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat saw the launch of a new university as a positive development, pointing out how few major universities have been established since the nineteenth century, but acknowledged how expensive doing so would be. He also saw conflicting forces in the project, including the "tension between the desire to promote great academic seriousness and the culture-war flag-waving that might be necessary to rally donor support".

The project also garnered criticism. Initial responses to the project included criticism of the lack of a plan to achieve the project's goals. The New York Times journalist Anemona Hartocollis questioned whether the founders would be able to "translate a provocative idea into a viable institution" while The New Republic's Alex Shephard described the plan as "largely half baked". Jennifer Wunder, a professor at Georgia Gwinnett College who participated in the process of obtaining her institution's initial accreditation, considered the proposed timeline to establish accredited graduate and undergraduate programs to be nearly impossible to meet. The proposal for a University of Austin was described by Gabriella Swerling in The Daily Telegraph as "anti-cancel culture" and by Alex Shephard in The New Republic as "anti-woke".

On Twitter, Weiss's former colleague Nikole Hannah-Jones, along with others, drew comparisons with Trump University. Writing in The Washington Post, political scientist and journalist Daniel W. Drezner called comparisons between UATX and Trump University "unkind and untrue". John Warner at Inside Higher Ed said "I think it is unfair to call it a scam or grift, because I have high confidence that the intentions behind the project are sincere."

In February 2024, in New Republic article titled, "Austin’s Anti-Woke University Is Living in Dreamland," Morgan O'Hanlon, voiced skepticism about the UATX, which would be competing with more established schools promoting an anti-woke agenda, including the University of Texas and its Civitas Institute.