The following is adapted from a speech delivered by Michael Ward on May 9, 2015, at Hillsdale College’s 163rd Commencement ceremony.
Of Hills and Dales – 2015 Commencement Address
A Rebirth of Liberty and Learning
Think of the definition of “reality”; then think of making one’s own reality. Do you see that it destroys the meaning of the word to use it that way? Man, Sex, God, and Yale
The political freedom that makes a liberal arts education possible requires an ongoing and active defense of liberty. “We live in a culture of Peter Pans”
Not to know what happened before you were born, that is to be always a boy, to be forever a child. Federal Student Aid and the Law of Unintended Consequences
Federal student financial assistance programs are costly, inefficient, byzantine, and fail to serve their desired objectives. Do We Need the Department of Education?
Education is something that individuals acting alone and cooperatively can do, let alone something local or state governments can do. Education, Economics, and Self-Government
A technical education can make a person wealthy and famous, but it does not teach that person what is best to do with wealth and fame. A Return to the Constitution
It is not enough anymore to rehearse by rote the Constitution or to celebrate it in vacuous observances. The Crisis and Politics of Higher Education
Many of our politicians have it backwards these days. It's not a shame to lose an election. But it is a shame to serve a wrong idea A Man Worth Knowing
I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love. To make the point, I want to discuss a single human being and why we should know him