by Kayley Chartier
Parents of a Clemson University graduate who were “incredibly impressed” by its capitalism institute recently donated $25 million to expand the popular program.
The Institute for the Study of Capitalism, which received more than a thousand applications last year, will be able to accept more students because of the donation from David and Lynette Snow. Their daughter is a graduate of the public, South Carolina university.
“The more people who understand capitalism’s role in our society, the more likely we will have more balanced conversations politically and socially,” David Snow told The College Fix in a recent email. “This is nothing but good for our country.”
Snow has participated on the institute’s board for over 10 years and has been “incredibly impressed” with the students applying to the program.
“They are incredibly bright and it has been a pleasure to watch these students grow intellectually over their four years in the Institute into incredibly articulate critical thinkers who understand the relationship between capitalism and our liberty,” he said.
The institute, established in 2005, works with students and scholars to expand awareness of “the moral foundations,” “core principles and institutions” of capitalism, according to its website.
Bradley Thompson, its executive director and professor of political philosophy, said he was “shocked, surprised, and utterly delighted” by the Snows’ donation.
“This gift represents the culmination of my life’s work and to know that what was the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism, now the Snow Institute, will be permanent, that it will be forever, is a great thing,” he said to The Fix during a recent phone interview.
With the money, the university will increase the number of students admitted to the institute’s Lyceum Program from 40 to 80, according to a university news release.
The program scholarship also will double, and the rest of the donation will be placed in an endowment to fund the program for decades to come, Thompson said.
Since the program’s start in 2014, it has become “one of the most sought-after and competitive academic programs in the country,” the release states. Its goal is to teach the next generation of entrepreneurs, teachers, and politicians about “liberty, capitalism, the American founding, and moral character.”
The Lyceum Program offers academic courses through a fellowship as well as scholarships and bi-weekly Socratic Tutor meetings with a faculty mentor.
In the last three years, two of its graduates became Fulbright Scholars and one became Clemson’s first Rhodes Scholar, Thompson said. Another recently was accepted as a U.S. Supreme Court clerk, and another is a professor at a university, he said.
When the Lyceum Program first launched, Thompson anticipated only 30 to 50 applicants and said he was “shocked” to have 192 applicants, The Fix reported earlier this year. Last year, he said the program received more than one thousand applicants.
Snow told The Fix he and his wife believe capitalism “is the engine that has made America the strongest most successful country in the world.”
To combat negative teachings, he said students need to learn how to easily articulate arguments in favor of capitalism. He emphasized the importance of educating the next generation to create a balance in the classroom and on social media.
Snow voiced concerns about other universities that no longer teach students the importance of the founding fathers, capitalism, and freedom.
He said many students are coming out of college believing that capitalism is evil and immoral.
“The more people who understand capitalism’s role in our society, the more likely we will have more balanced conversations politically and socially,” he told The Fix. “This is nothing but good for our country.”
Snow said he and his wife hope the success of the Clemson institute will influence other universities to replicate the program.
The University of Tennessee and Arizona State University are among those that have expressed interest in starting similar programs, Professor Thompson told The Fix earlier this year.
Thompson said this is evidence that parents and students are tired of “woke” politics infiltrating college campuses. He said students often are taught through materials like the “1619 Project” that America’s founders were evil and slavery is at the country’s foundation.
But a country that “views itself as immoral is that a country that cannot last,” he told The Fix.
Thompson said their institute aims to restore the truth about American history to the heart of the higher education system.
“If you believe that principle, which we do, then you have to know that the health or sickness of a country depends on the cultural ideas that govern that country,” he told The Fix.
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College Fix contributor Kayley Chartier is a student at Fort Hays State University she is pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice.
Photo “Clemson University Campus” by Clemson University.
