![]() ![]() Some of the frustration comes from personal experience of those involved. In a Bloomberg piece about the launch of the university, board member Niall Ferguson wrote: “Academic freedom dies in wokeness.” Part of the attention stems from the school’s initial key members, many of whom have stirred up criticism based on their critiques of cancel culture, “woke”-ness, and sometimes affirmative action or the DEI movement. ![]() The new university has garnered an unusual degree of attention for a school that is still drafting an undergraduate program and is still waiting on the state of Texas for authorization to offer degrees and charge for courses before it can start the accreditation process. “ were eager to when presented with the opportunity.” “We’ve had so many people actually reach out to us and say, Can we get involved? Can we do a seminar? Can we run a workshop?” Kanelos told Fortune from the university’s newly obtained campus space in Austin, located on the top floor of a building on Congress Avenue. Andreessen, Solana, Lonsdale, and Rauch didn’t respond to requests for comment regarding lectures. (He declined to name specific individuals who had donated, and a spokesperson later said the school wouldn’t confirm exact figures. Kanelos estimated that approximately one-third of the school’s nearly $150 million in donations have come from individuals working within the venture capital or tech ecosystem. Last year philosopher Kathleen Stock and economist Deirdre McCloskey debated gender and transgender issues in an hour-long session UATX later published on YouTube.įinancially, venture capitalists and tech CEOs are stepping up with cash. The tech founders and venture capitalists will be joining people like economist Glenn Loury, teaching on racial inequality in America, and author Katie Roiphe, who is teaching how to write about sexual politics. MaC Venture Capital’s Adrian Fenty and a16z’s Katherine Boyle are listed as speakers for another program, the university’s yearlong entrepreneurship and leadership Polaris fellowship, according to the UATX prospectus). (Founders Fund vice president Mike Solana had been scheduled to lecture as well, though he has since pulled out because of a conflict, according to UATX. Web3 startup Spindl CEO Antonio García Martínez and Guillermo Rauch, CEO of web development unicorn Vercel, an 8VC portfolio company, are on the roster as lecturers too. The free program taking place in June will delve into questions around science and religion, race, gender politics, and conservatism, among other things, and participants will be reading everything from books by Edmund Burke and Thomas Sowell to selections from the Book of Genesis. While it is unclear whether he, like Lonsdale, has donated to the school, he will join Lonsdale as a lecturer for the university’s second rendition of its academic program called “Forbidden Courses”-named such because UATX argues the “current turbulence” prevents people from “encountering one another honestly and authentically,” according to the school’s prospectus. “We just all agreed-I would say the spirit of it was there are a lot of things in the world are broken now,” Kanelos says, using language notably synonymous with the slogan of 8VC, plastered on the homepage of the firm’s website: “The world is broken, let’s fix it.”Įven Netscape cofounder and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is getting involved. John’s College, says he was drawn to the various personalities all converging over the importance of higher education. Kanelos, whom Weiss enticed away from his role as president of St. Over a hot weekend at Lonsdale’s enormous 11-bedroom home on the west side of Austin, a group that included former New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss, evolutionary biologist Heather Heying, and Harvard University professor Arthur Brooks hashed out what it would look like to set up a new university, explains Pano Kanelos, president of the University of Austin, in an interview with Fortune. The school has put down roots in the now hometown of Joe Lonsdale, the cofounder of Palantir who runs the multibillion-dollar Austin-based venture firm 8VC. ![]()
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