About Us

About Us

The Boethius Institute is a fellowship of Master Teachers of traditional liberal education devoted to continuing and deepening that tradition through teaching, mentoring, speaking, writing, and collaborating with like-minded institutions. Through our Arts of Liberty website,  we offer a variety of interdisciplinary resources intended to form and to foster a knowledge and a love of the liberal arts and liberal education in students, teachers, and lifelong learners.

What We Do

The Boethius Institute for the Advancement of Liberal Education serves the ongoing renewal of liberal arts education by assisting scholars and leaders to grow in their understanding and practice of the traditional liberal arts and sciences, while also growing in practical wisdom about the goals and means of education. Our Fellowship unites those passionate about liberal education in a bond of friendship and common effort on behalf of the advancement of liberal education throughout the world. Through the Arts of Liberty website, we offer an array of curricular and formational material for use by teachers, students, and lifelong learners.

In particular:

  • We develop understanding, friendship and collaboration through annual symposia of our senior and associate fellows.
  • We provide formation and mentorship for present and future leaders of the renewal formally through our Fellows in Formation program, along with offering formal and informal direction to other scholars and education leaders.
  • We develop new curricular resources ourselves, as well as identifying and promoting those developed by others.
  • We provide specialized content formation for classroom educators in the traditional liberal arts and sciences.
  • We contribute scholarly talks, articles and books in the academic forum and related cultural and academic arenas.
  • We offer individualized services to developing programs of liberal education in the United States and abroad.
  • We collaborate with other institutions on conferences, publications, and other offerings, and contribute to common counsel about the education renewal.

Our Patron

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was a philosopher, theologian, statesman, and martyr who devoted his life to preserving the wisdom of the Greco-Roman world for those who were to live under barbarian domination. He gifted to the Medieval West Latin translations of the logical works of Aristotle and Porphyry and  treatises on geometry, arithmetic, and music. More importantly, he modeled for the new Christian world a love of the intellectual achievements of the ancient world, which he exemplified through his theological treatises and especially his renowned dialogue, The Consolation of Philosophy. 

The Boethius Institute was conceived under the inspiration of The Consolation in a particular way, and of the life and work of Boethius generally. Our logo expresses the importance of The Consolation through the Greek letters, pi and theta, which Boethius saw on Lady’s Philosophy’s garment, signifying the interconnection of the practical and theoretical branches of philosophy. The white cross on red field refers to the arms of the city of Pavia, Italy, where Boethius was martyred and his cult developed. The illumination coming from the book being read symbolizes our life of learning and the fruit that comes from it.  Learn more about Boethius here.

The Need

The renewal of liberal arts education has been gaining momentum over the past decade. Networks such as the Barney Charter Schools Initiative, Great Hearts Academies, the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, Chesterton Academies, and the Association of Christian Classical Schools represent over 750 schools, while liberal arts homeschooling efforts may be reaching as many as a million students. Serious concerns about the politicization of mainstream schools are leading many more parents and educators to consider a return to liberal arts education. 

On the university level, organizations such as the Association for Core Texts and Curricula ahd the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education are promoting a return to classical sources and attitudes toward learning. Several Masters and PhD programs have sprung up to serve the need for advanced formation. Drawn by the success of the resurgence in the United States, leaders of educational institutions around the world are seeking inspiration, guidance, and support for their own efforts.

The growth of the renewal has brought a need to think more deeply about liberal arts education as it was practiced in the past as a guide to how we might practice it today. But few practitioners in the movement have been thoroughly educated in the liberal arts and sciences themselves. At the same time, the past decades of liberal arts education have produced students capable under the right guidance of achieving a level of excellence like that found in past ages.

Our Team

Andrew Seeley

President

Andrew Seeley is co-founder and President of the Boethius Institute for the Advancement of Liberal Education. He also serves as the Director of Advanced Formation for Educators at the Augustine Institute. He  received a Licentiate from the Pontifical Institute in Medieval Studies in Toronto and a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto. Over his three decades as a Tutor at Thomas Aquinas College in California, Dr. Seeley completed teaching every subject in its demanding, integrated Great Books curriculum. He is co-author of Declaration Statesmanship: A Course in American Government. Desiring to share his love of learning and teaching, Dr. Seeley co-founded the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education in 2005, where he served as Executive Director for 12 years, and continues to contribute as a board member and a Faculty Consultant. He became Executive Director of the Arts of Liberty Project in 2021. In recognition of his work in the renewal of liberal education, he has been named as the 2023 recipient of the Circe Institute’s Paideia Prize.

Publications

Classic Hymns for Catholic Schools (editor), Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, April, 2021.

Golden Treasures: Notes and Commentary on Classic English Hymns, Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, 2021.

Renewing Catholic Schools: How to Regain a Catholic Vision in a Secular Age (contributor). Catholic University of America Press, 2020. 

Declaration Statesmanship: A Course in American Government (with Dr. Richard Ferrier), 2002; republished by TAN Books, 2021.

Papers and Essays

“Numbers Make Me Sad: A Mathematical Account of Music’s Emotional Power”, The National Conference of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, July 2021.

 “The Declaration of Independence: Shadow or Image?” Thomas Aquinas College, February 2021.

“The Gravity of Gravity: Astronomy and its Relevance”, Imaginative Conservative, January 2021.

“Hamlet and the Problem of Conscience”, St. Austin Review, March/April 2016.

“A Wise and Understanding People”, presented to Authenticum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, April 

2015.

“The Education of the Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings”, The Imaginative Conservative, August 

2014.

“The Blessings of Liberty:  Reminders from Aristotle and Livy For Our Troubled Times”:  Arts 

of Liberty: A Journal on Liberal Arts and Liberal Education, Summer 2014. 

“Cassius and the Tragedy of Rome”, in Julius Caesar, Ignatius Critical Editions:  San Francisco, 

CA, 2012.

“Aristotelian Matter in an Evolutionary Cosmos”. Presented at the Society for Aristotelian Studies conference, June 2011.

Blog

When I Discovered Your Words

Jeffrey Lehman

Dean of Fellows

Jeffrey S. Lehman is co-founder and Dean of Fellows at the Boethius Institute and Professor of Philosophy and Theology and Director of the M.A. in Catholic Education program at the Augustine Institute’s Graduate School of Theology. He earned a B.A. in Biblical Literature and Philosophy from Taylor University, an M.A. in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Dallas. He is the founder and President of the Arts of Liberty Project, a Founding Fellow of the Center for Thomas More Studies, and he has served on the teaching faculty at Biola University, Thomas Aquinas College, Hillsdale College, and the University of Dallas, where he received the Haggerty Award for Excellence in Teaching. While at the University of Dallas, he also served as director of the Classical Education Graduate Program and executive director of the St. Ambrose Center for Catholic Liberal Education. He has several publications on a wide array of authors, including Augustine: Rejoicing in the Truth and Socratic Conversation: Bringing the Dialogues of Plato and the Socratic Tradition into Today's Classroom.

Monographs & Edited Volumes

Author: Socratic Conversation: Bringing the Dialogues of Plato and the Socratic Tradition into Today’s Classroom, Classical Academic Press, 2021 (front matter and first chapter)

Author: Augustine: Rejoicing in the Truth, Classical Academic Press, 2018 (front matter and first chapter)

Editor: Life of John Picus Earl of Mirandola: 500th Anniversary Edition, Center for Thomas More Studies, 2010 (entire work published online)

Articles in Academic Journals & Essays in Collections

Article: "The Cave and the Quadrivium: Mathematics in Classical Education," Principia: A Journal of Classical Education, Vol. 1. Iss. 1, 2022 (article)

Essay in Collection: "Book 3: Augustine's Pedagogy of Presence, Truth, and Love," in Augustine's Confessions and Contemporary Concerns, edited by Fr. David Vincent Meconi, SJ, Catholic University of America Press [Imprint: St. Paul Seminary Press], 2022 (table of contents and introduction to collection of essays)

Essay in Collection: "Passing Strange, Yet Wholly True: On the Political Tales of Plato’s Critias and More’s Hythlodaeus," in Thomas More: Why Patron of Statesmen?, edited by Travis Curtright, Rowman & Littlefield, 2015 (table of contents)

Article: "Seeing Tyranny in More’s History of King Richard III," Moreana, June 2013, Vol. 50, No. 191-192 (abstract)

Article: “'As I read, I was set on fire'": On the Psalms in Augustine's Confessions,” Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Vol. 16, No. 2., Spring 2013 (entire article)

Essays & Excerpts: "Chapter 3: Aristotle" and "Chapter 4: Virgil", in The Great Books Reader, Excerpts and Essays on the Most Influential Books in Western Civilization, edited by John Mark Reynolds, Baker Publishing, 2011 (table of contents)

Public Lectures & Podcasts

Podcast: "Episode 1: Plato's Apology," The Examining Life: A Podcast of the Arts of Liberty Project (recording)

Podcast: "Episode 3: Raphael's School of Athens," The Examining Life: A Podcast of the Arts of Liberty Project (recording)

Podcast: "Episode 8: Anselm's Proslogion," The Examining Life: A Podcast of the Arts of Liberty Project (recording)

Public Lecture: “On the Psalms in St. Augustine’s Confessions," St. Vincent de Paul Lecture & Concert Series, Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA,  2015 (recording)

Teaching Awards and Commendations

"Educating by Example: A Tribute to Dr. Lehman," by Avery Lacey, Hillsdale College, 2019 (article)

Haggerty Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Dallas, 2022 (press release)

Matthew Walz

Matthew Walz was born in New York, but grew up mostly in Ohio. He completed undergraduate studies at Christendom College, double-majoring in philosophy and theology and graduating as the valedictorian of the class of 1995. He did graduate studies in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America (CUA). There he earned a doctorate in philosophy by completing a dissertation on Thomas Aquinas’s understanding of free will.

Matthew has been teaching at the college level since 1998. As a graduate student, he taught for two years at CUA. Then he began teaching at Thomas Aquinas College, where he remained for eight years. Since 2008 he has been a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Dallas (UD). He served as Chair of the Philosophy Department for four years. In the summer of 2012, he began serving as the Director of the Philosophy & Letters and Pre-Theology Programs at UD and became the Director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary. Since the summer of 2022, moreover, he has been serving as Associate Dean of the Constantin College of Liberal Arts at UD.

Matthew’s research and writing focus primarily on medieval philosophy, ancient philosophy, and philosophical anthropology. As his publications indicate, in addition to Aquinas, his favorite philosophical authors include Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, Bonaventure, and Wojtyla/John Paul II.

Matthew has been married to his lovely wife Teresa since 1999. They have been blessed with eight children (two boys and six girls) who keep them busy, of course, but also joyful and grateful to God for His multitudinous gifts.

Book translation

Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion (including Gaunilo’s objections and Anselm’s reply), translated and introduced by Matthew D. Walz (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2013).

Articles

“A ‘Kingdom of Friends’: Personal Dimensions of Aquinas’s Moral World,” The Aquinas Review 25 (2022): 59-76.

“Study, Truth, and Personal Formation: Reflections on John Paul II’s Pastores dabo vobis,” International Journal of Christianity and Education 25 (2021): 277-89.

“Toward a Causal Account of Priestly Formation: A Reading of Pastores dabo vobis,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review (January 28, 2021, https://www.hprweb.com/2021/01/toward-a-causal-account-of-priestly-formation/).

“Education as Intellectual Healing: Pedagogical Dimension of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy,” in: Liberal Arts and Core Texts in the World of Our Students, ed. G. Camp (The ACTC Liberal Arts Institute, 2021), 33-37.

“From Monasticism to Scholasticism: Reflections on Anselm and Aquinas,” in: The Arts and Sciences of a Core Text Education: What Are They? Why Do We Need Them?, ed. S. Ashmot and K. Tom (The ACTC Liberal Arts Institute, 2021), 45–49.

“At the Heart of Atheism: Aquinas on the Two Basic Objections to a God’s Existence,” in: Bridging Divides, Crossing Borders, Community Building: The Human Voice in Core Texts and the Liberal Arts, eds. T. Hoang and D. Nuckols (The ACTC Liberal Arts Institute, 2021), 139-44.

“Death by Incarnation,” Logos 23 (2020): 19–35.

“Synthesizing Aquinas and Newman on Religion,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 86 (2019): 173–98.

“Augustine’s Modification of Liberal Education: Reflections on De doctrina Christiana,” Arts of Liberty 1 (2013): 51–97.

“Stoicism as Anesthesia: Philosophy’s ‘Gentler Remedies’ in Boethius’s Consolation,” International Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2011): 501–19.

“An Erotic Pattern of Thinking in Anselm’s Proslogion,” Quaestiones Disputatae 2 (2011): 126–45.

“The ‘Logic’ of Faith Seeking Understanding: A Propaedeutic for Anselm’s Proslogion,” Dionysius 28 (2010): 131–66.

“The Opening of On Interpretation: Toward a More Literal Reading,” Phronesis 51 (2006): 230–51.

“What is a Power of the Soul? Aquinas’s Answer,” Sapientia 60 (2006): 319–48.

“Theological and Philosophical Dependencies in Bonaventure’s Argument Against an Eternal World,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 97 (1998): 75–98.

Invited publications

Foreword to Wayne Hankey, Aquinas’s Neoplatonism in the Summa theologiae on God: A Short Introduction (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2019).

“Boethius, Christianity, and the Limits of Stoicism,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 45 (2018), 407–25.

“Boethius and Stoicism,” in: The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition, ed. J. Sellars (London: Routledge, 2016): 70–84.

Clairemarie Kalan

Communications Manager

Clairemarie Kalan is the Communications Manager. She fell in love with the liberal arts while earning her B.A. in Liberal Arts at Thomas Aquinas College. After graduation, she left academia and became a writer for a technology company. She quickly discovered she had to fight to preserve her education. Her desire to support fellow lifelong learners outside of academia led her to join the Boethius Institute. She manages the podcast, newsletter, websites, and social media.

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