Press Release: Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey Join the American Enterprise Institute to Study the Proper Role of the University in America

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Washington, DC (April 11, 2022) — AEI Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies (SCCS) Yuval Levin announced today that Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey, both professors at Furman University, will join AEI full-time as senior fellows in July 2022.

At AEI, the Storeys will write about the future of liberal education and the relationship between universities and the health of American society and culture. They will convene conferences and conversations devoted to these questions and work to refocus debates about the university to examine not just its deformations, but its constructive purpose. The Storeys’ work will aim to clarify the important role liberal education plays in sustaining civic life, and recover the proper role and purpose of the modern university in America.

Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey first joined AEI as SCCS visiting fellows during the 2021–22 academic year. At Furman University, they both were professors of politics and international affairs and together directed the Tocqueville Program, an intellectual community dedicated to the investigation of the moral and philosophic questions at the heart of political life. Dr. Benjamin Storey is a former visiting fellow at Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and served as the director of a National Endowment for the Humanities “Enduring Questions” course development project. Dr. Jenna Silber Storey was a winner of the Silas N. Pearman award for her teaching at Furman, and served on the Board of Veritas Preparatory Academy, a classical Christian school in Greenville, SC.

The Storeys are coauthors of “Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment” (Princeton University Press, 2021).

Said Levin, “We are thrilled to have the Storeys join the AEI community and help policymakers and the American public better understand the important purpose of a liberal education in our free society.”

For questions, interviews, or other media inquiries, please email [email protected] or call 202.862.5829.

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