CLT Founder & CEO Offers Praise for TAC

In the latest episode of the Crisis Point podcast, Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis magazine, interviews Jeremy Tate, founder and CEO of the Classic Learning Test (CLT). Mr. Tate has many thoughtful insights about the bright future of classical education — a future which will owe much of its ardor to Thomas Aquinas College.

“The university system no longer owns access to knowledge,” Mr. Tate observes. Once, “the Harvard Library was the library, but now you’ve got more on your smartphone than the Harvard Library could ever dream of.” With a torrent of technological and sociological changes eroding their significance, many legacy institutions remain relevant by conforming to passing ideological fads, sacrificing curricular breadth and historical nuance in the process.

“They’re well-dressed, wearing blazers and ties, sitting around a big round table with no devices to be seen, talking at a deep level about the texts that have shaped human history.”

Several younger colleges, however, are pivoting, exchanging the elective catalog for curricula that reflect the perennial wisdom of the West. “One that’s very special to me is Thomas Aquinas College,” says Mr. Tate. “I had a chance to go out and visit about a year ago. You’ve got 15 students [in a classroom]. They’re well-dressed, wearing blazers and ties, sitting around a big round table with no devices to be seen, talking at a deep level about the texts that have shaped human history.” This intellectual culture leaves a mark. “There’s an intellectual humility,” he notes. “There’s a curiosity, an ability to get to the bottom of things.”

Indeed, the distinct intellectual blend of humility and confidence that characterizes the College’s alumni has directly shaped the CLT itself. Mr. Tate recalls bringing his initial idea for more classical assessments to the Cardinal Newman Society, which directed him to the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, founded by alumni Andrew Seeley (’87) and Michael Van Hecke (’86). “We started to imagine, working with folks like Michael Van Hecke, what could this look like?” he says of the nascent project. Moreover, when crafting the assessments, he consulted the College’s curriculum for guidance about what is truly classical.

Society, says Mr. Tate, is undergoing “a seismic shift, and in some ways a collapse of education as we’ve known it.” The only institutions which will remain are those built on the dedication to truth, goodness, and beauty that first animated the West. “We are so quick to forget,” Mr. Tate laments. “The modern university system was born out of medieval Christendom. We created so many of the first schools in America.”

Thanks to Thomas Aquinas College and institutions like it, Catholics can hope to create those schools anew.