Belmont Abbey College

The Catholic College of the South

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Helping Others Thrive: Student Abbey Martin on Learning to Lead at Belmont Abbey College

Helping Others Thrive: Student Abbey Martin on Learning to Lead at Belmont Abbey College

As an organizational and personal development specialist who works at an international cabinetry hardware corporation, Abigail “Abbey” Martin is involved in just about everything related to training the company’s employees. She designs and leads classes that teach skills in areas such as public speaking and active listening, facilitates training sessions with outside providers, and helps her co-workers prepare for promotions and new positions.

“I’ve always loved helping people,” Martin said. “I grew up wanting to be a teacher.”

Even though she is currently working in business administration, Martin has never let go of that dream. One day she would like to teach organizational behavior, leadership, and similar subjects at the college level.

“When I was an undergrad, there were two professors who opened my eyes so much. They changed my career trajectory,” she said. “I want to be that person for others.”

Until then, Martin wants to have as positive an impact as possible in the corporate world while she gathers invaluable first-hand experience.

To help her accomplish all of her goals, Martin enrolled in the online Master of Arts (MA) in Leadership program at Belmont Abbey College in August 2025. While she is only about halfway through her studies as of summer 2026, she feels she has already had a transformative experience.

Where to Start: Finding the Right Program for Authentic Leadership Development

While Martin only recently became a Belmont Abbey student, her connection to the school goes back much further. She grew up nearby and attended soccer camps on the campus. In kindergarten, she decided to go by “Abbey” instead of “Abby,” “Abi,” or any other shortened variation of her full name. She simply loved the way the name looked on Belmont Abbey’s signs.

Years later, when it came time to explore master’s programs, Martin naturally considered her nicknamesake first, but her final decision required a process that was a bit more nuanced.

“I got a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in human resources, but with that, I also had to take accounting and finance classes,” Martin said. “I’m not a numbers person. I knew I wanted to get my master’s, but I didn’t want to get an MBA. It would just not fit me that well.”

What Martin wanted was a program that would enable her to deepen her understanding of organizational behavior, development, and leadership. In that sense, the Master of Arts in Leadership program at Belmont Abbey College seemed like the perfect fit.

“This program hits everything on my list,” she said. “Finding it was a full-circle moment.”

Flexible, Hands-On, and Transformational: Martin’s Online Student Experience

Once Martin requested more information from the MA in Leadership program and started the enrollment process, she found that her initial judgment about the program was correct. However, the program is typically offered in a full-time one-year format, and Martin works full-time and sometimes travels to Austria for work. She says the program’s administrators were quick to help her create a two-year part-time plan.

“They’ve been really flexible,” Martin said. “I couldn’t schedule one of the classes to graduate in two years. So they made a substitution for me, and I was able to take a different class.”

A year in, Martin still has about five classes to go. With each one, she is learning new skills that are helping her in her current role and setting the foundation for her long-term success.

A Hands-On Curriculum Rooted in Real-World Issues

So far, Martin has taken classes in subjects such as the foundations of leadership and professional and technical communication. Each one is delivered online, but, in Martin’s experience, the assignments her instructors give add a hands-on and personalized component to the curriculum

“You’re actually able to tie theories to the real world and use different lenses,” she said.

For instance, in her class on organizational change management, Martin and her peers were tasked with analyzing and making suggestions about a change a business had recently navigated. Students could choose any organization they liked, but Martin chose her own.

“I was able to diagnose how the changes were going at my current organization and identify what we could do to make it better,” she said.

Growing Personally: The Ethical Backbone of the MA in Leadership Program

As a Benedictine institution, Belmont Abbey College integrates values such as service, hospitality, and community into every program. Martin has found this aspect of her education to be just as applicable to her career as the new skills she is learning.

“I absolutely love the Benedictine philosophy, especially the human dignity side of it,” Martin said. “I have taken so much of that mindset into my job. I have tried hard to instill it in other people and make sure I’m exuding it. I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve tried to take away from this program.”

Martin particularly enjoyed reading works by Brené Brown and John Maxwell, modern leadership thinkers who focus on topics such as building trust as a leader, providing clear and honest feedback, and prioritizing ethical leadership.

To tie it all together, Martin completed an oral exam in which she was asked to apply ethical principles to different business scenarios, an exercise she found particularly impactful.

“Taking that ethical mindset and not just reading the words but applying it to work and things going on now was massive for me,” she said. “It really stuck with me.”

When Is the Right Time to Pursue a Master’s?

At just 23 years old, Martin is an experienced professional and, at the same time, still in the early days of her career. She knew now was the best time to invest in her career by earning a master’s, but she wondered if she could handle it or if it was a good idea to dive right in.

Martin is not one to dwell on those types of doubts very long, and now that she is deep into her studies, they are completely gone. She wants that to serve as encouragement for anyone considering enrolling, no matter where they are in their own careers.

“If this is the stepping stone you need to get somewhere in your career or life, do it. Trust in yourself that you’ve got it,” she said of enrolling in the MA in Leadership program. “Balancing school, your social life, and work is hard, but you will be insanely proud of yourself afterward. Embrace it, be good to yourself throughout it all, and give yourself grace.”

Learn to Lead Effectively and Ethically at Belmont Abbey College

In today’s ever-shifting economic landscape, authentic stakeholder engagement, ethical leadership, and informed decision-making are more important than ever. Through Belmont Abbey College’s MA in Leadership program, professionals working in any sector can learn skills in these areas that will enable them to guide their organizations through new obstacles and opportunities alike.

Over the course of 12 months, students take 10 online classes that teach concrete skills in fields such as data analytics, human resource management, and organizational change management. Along the way, Belmont Abbey’s impassioned faculty help them apply these skills within a servant leadership framework that both drives results and inspires others.

To find out more about the program’s curriculum, its scheduling options, or anything else, request information from Belmont Abbey College today.

Recommended Readings

Belmont Abbey College Celebrates Second Annual Graduate Commencement
Belmont Abbey College Launches Online Skills Marketplace to Expand Access to Industry Certifications
Saint Benedict Day — Celebrating the Father of Western Monasticism

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Subsidiarity, Mission, and the Moral Foundation of Commercial Society

Cambridge University Press recently published an article co-authored by Emmett McGroarty, Executive Director of the Belmont House on Capitol Hill.

In this article, he discusses civic virtue, economic enterprise, and the costs of government centralization. Keep reading to explore the abstract, or scroll down for the link to the full text:

The theory of this essay is (i) that Tocquevillian democracy functions as a work shed in which the citizen actively builds society and, in the process, develops virtues; (ii) that the citizen brings those virtues to the workplace to the benefit of that enterprise and commercial society; (iii) that those virtues are particularized in the workplace; and (iv), without democracy, capitalism’s inculcation of virtue in the person is incomplete. Tocquevillian democracy encourages the citizen to shun the inward focus of individualism in favor of a disposition critical to both capitalism and democracy: the disposition to create positive associations with others, external and internal to an enterprise or association. Tocquevillian democracy complements capitalism, ameliorating human vices of greed and selfishness. Imbued with an outward-looking disposition, the market agent is encouraged to suppress individualism and selfishness and instead embrace a mission of service to society. Government centralization, particularly the usurpation of local power, has negative consequences which affect commercial society, impairing the moral formation of the market agent and the worker.

To read the full article, click here >>

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Father James Leads Students on an Annual Medical Mission Trip

Last year, our own Father James Raber, OSB led two medical mission trips to the Dominican Republic, one in September and one in March. Serving in clinics and providing essential medical support, groups of eight and sixteen Belmont Abbey students, including many enrolled in our Nursing program, took up the call to love and sacrifice by ministering to the needs of their Caribbean brothers and sisters.

By establishing this new Abbey tradition, Father continues the same legacy of service that inspires seniors to join the Benedictine Volunteer Corps (BVC) each year. While the BVC entails a nine month commitment, these intensive medical mission trips open additional life-changing service opportunities to even more Abbey students.

Read on to learn more about these medical missions, featured in a recent Catholic Register article:

Ignatian retreat campus in the Caribbean serves as hub for medical missions

By: Tom Tracy, OSV News
Originally Published in The Catholic Register

SANTIAGO DE LOS CABALLEROS, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

When Benedictine Father James Raber asked last year if he could bring three or four student volunteers along to an annual medical mission in the Caribbean he got a nice surprise.

“I thought it would be great if I could bring several Belmont Abbey (College) students here as part of a mission trip — and they offered me a dozen spots,” said Father Raber, chaplain at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina.

“And one thing I absolutely love to do is see the students interact with the patients,” he added.

The priest and his students joined up with a larger U.S, medical volunteer delegation last year operating out of the expansive campus of the Institute for Latin American Concern, or ILAC, in Santiago de los Caballeros.

A four-decades old Catholic-affiliated retreat-style property founded in the 1970s by two Jesuit missionaries originally from Cuba, teams of volunteer medical specialists, surgeons, dentists and support staff integrate with local Mission ILAC staff and medical volunteers in their care for hundreds of patients in the context of Ignatian spirituality.

“It is a wonderful thing to be able to work with people who help with the mission: I am saying Mass for them, leading ecumenical reflections and hearing confessions often in the evening when there is some down time,” Father Raber told OSV News, adding that he enjoys being a priestly presence in the pediatric clinics and interacting with young families who have registered months in advance to see a medic.

“There are also people who are going to be going under for surgery who need anointing of the sick and that is offered as well,” the priest said.

Although the Belmont Abbey delegation only stayed less than a week, Mission ILAC operates year-round as a global gathering point for international medical volunteers and as a resource for often neglected rural northern reaches of the Dominican Republic and its proximity to Haiti’s border.

There are remote mountain villages with communities of Haitians living there without documents and other rural villages throughout the northwestern Dominican Republic. Consequently, Mission ILAC center coordinates medical outreach to those places where no governmental or private organization reaches.

Over the years, volunteer medics and students from Ivy League and other U.S. institutions have utilized the ILAC campus for Spanish-language courses, medical training and enrichment programs, including most notably Jesuit-run Creighton University, which earlier this year opened a 3,000-square-foot, high-tech classroom and communal space.

The Creighton facility will reportedly increase opportunities for its student engagement in research, economic development and environmental sustainability across the Dominican Republic’s communities where Creighton has health partnerships.

Student doctors, nurses and medics on overseas medical mission experiences often work alongside world-class medical professionals and are rewarded with hands-on experiences, cross-cultural patient interaction and career changing inspiration.

Katherine Calvet, a Florida resident and one of the Belmont Abbey College students who has made several mission trips to Santiago de los Caballeros, said ILAC helped her focus her educational decisions early on while still a freshman at Belmont.

“I thought it would be an opportunity to serve the people of the Dominican Republic and share my passion for helping others,” said Calvet, who is now an undergraduate at Florida State University.

Her trips to ILAC were in concert with the Miami-based Cuban Association of the Order of Malta, which makes twice annual ILAC missions providing outpatient surgeries, pediatrics, family medicine, cardiology, dentistry and more.

“I fell in love with medicine very quickly within the first two hours of working with one of the doctors and I definitely have passion for medicine now,” Calvet told OSV News. “In triage we saw very high blood pressures and very high blood glucose levels.”

One of the senior doctors helping staff the Malta-sponsored mission in 2025 was Dr. Grant Phillips, associate director of a residency program at Altoona Family Physicians Residency Program at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

“I’ve been coming here for about 10 or 15 years,” said Phillips, who participated in an end-of-day ecumenical debriefing at ILAC’s on-site chapel following a long day. He also trains student volunteers during his consultations.

“I have a lot of gratitude both to the patients — because they carry the burden of the disease — and the people who brought me down here and allowed me to get fulfillment by helping the people here. This is a life changing experience.”

Some of the medics will venture into the nearby mountain communities.

Mission ILAC maintains a network of community leader “cooperadores de salud” (“cooperators of health”), composed of men and women from their own rural communities who promote better healthcare access along with improvement of agricultural techniques as a way of maintaining rural community wellness and reducing mass migration to the cities.

It is now estimated that four-fifths of the Dominican population now live in one of several urban centers, creating a strain on infrastructure. Many others have left the country altogether in recent decades.

Making her 31st trip to ILAC with the Order of Malta was Dr. Jane Cohen, a primary care physician at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach and a veteran volunteer at ILAC who said she comes at her own expense.

“I have met people from all over the U.S. and all over the world who have improved my life and taught me things I couldn’t have learned elsewhere,” Cohen said.

Cohen makes a point of attending ILAC ecumenical sessions where she shares her experiences with colleagues. She expressed gratitude to her husband back home who allows her to take vacation time and even go off the grid into the village communities.

“I decided I wanted to go out into the campos three hours by car up a rickety mountain pathway to see people who either couldn’t get to us or needed our help there and they were so welcoming,” she said.

There were 56 people in that particular community and the medical team saw about half of them as patients. On a second day they stopped at two communities of Haitians, living there without documents.

“I was trying to teach some of the medical students to see the ‘progression of disease'” and not overreach for solutions, she said, noting that many patients in the U.S. are shuffled off to the emergency room or sent out for time-consuming testing.

“For years I was coming here speaking to other internal medicine doctors like myself who realized that our services are better rendered in the office preventing people from getting admitted to the hospital,” Cohen added.

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What Can You Do With a Leadership Degree?

What Can You Do With a Leadership Degree?

Transformational leaders guide organizations through change, manage teams effectively, and deliver on organizational goals. Earning a leadership degree helps professionals develop the skills they need to take on leadership responsibilities.

Prospective graduate students have options such as a master’s degree in business administration, management, or public administration. What’s the benefit of earning a leadership degree? With its emphasis on organizational behavior and leadership principles, a Master of Arts (MA) in Leadership program is designed to prepare current and future leaders for people-driven management roles.

What Is a Master’s Degree in Leadership?

A master’s degree in leadership program trains students to lead organizations by employing effective and ethical principles. Students learn how to adapt to changing business conditions, understand organizational dynamics, and implement strategic plans. They also develop people-focused leadership skills, with an emphasis on employee development, management, and engagement.

Coursework in a leadership degree program covers business, human resources, psychology, and management topics. While enrolled in a graduate-level leadership program, students explore organizational leadership theories and learn how to apply these theories in practice.

Rather than emphasizing a particular industry or career path, a leadership degree program is intended to develop transferable skills that apply across industries and roles.

What Will You Learn in a Master’s in Leadership Program?

The curriculum for a master’s in leadership program includes coursework in strategic human resources management, nonprofit leadership, and organizational change management.

Students in a master’s in leadership program develop key skills in areas that include:

  • Strategic planning: Management roles require professionals with strong strategic decision-making skills in order for them to excel as leaders. Master’s in leadership students build their problem-solving, analytical reasoning, and risk assessment skills to identify patterns and develop proactive responses.
  • People management: Leaders need people management skills to attract and retain talent, resolve conflicts, and foster a positive work culture. Students in a leadership master’s program explore mentorship, motivation, and interpersonal communication while developing the skills needed to prioritize human needs.
  • Communication: Successful leaders draw on their communication skills to promote a positive workplace culture, understand stakeholders’ interests, and manage teams. Master’s in leadership programs enable professionals to cultivate effective communication skills through an emphasis on emotional intelligence, understanding their audience, and honing their communication styles.
  • Ethical leadership: Students explore the connections between ethics, organizational responsibility, and core values to develop ethical leadership skills. They study traits of ethical leaders, the role of transparency and accountability, and tactics for implementing value-driven policies.

Master’s in leadership students also learn how to critically evaluate programs, create action plans, and allocate resources. By studying organizational behavior, management principles, and team leadership theories, students prepare for decision-making roles in any type of organization.

Benefits of Earning a Master’s in Leadership

Leadership master’s programs focus on team dynamics, collaboration, and change management. This emphasis on people-driven management can benefit professionals in any industry.

Other benefits of earning a master’s in leadership include:

  • Nonprofit leadership preparation: A master’s degree program in leadership enables individuals to hone the strategic, change management, and communication skills needed for top roles in nonprofit organizations.
  • Career advancement: Leadership programs focus on helping professionals build valuable skills that can lead to their career advancement. With a master’s in leadership, professionals can move into management roles in their current field or transition into a new field.
  • Earning potential: Many of the positions professionals pursue with a leadership degree offer high salaries, including human resources manager, training and development manager, project manager, operations manager, healthcare services manager, sales manager, management analyst positions, and even executive roles like VP, director, and more.

According to a 2025 World Economic Forum survey of employers, the skills most often requested of today’s candidates are analytical thinking, leadership, social influence, and creative thinking skills.

Careers With a Master’s in Leadership Degree

What can you do with a leadership degree? Earning a master’s in leadership positions professionals for advanced roles in human resources, operations, or administration. Graduates also can advance in their career in an area such as marketing, sales, or finance.

Nonprofit Executive Director

Nonprofit executive directors hold the top role in their organization. They oversee daily operations, manage finances, and set long-term goals for the nonprofit. Executive directors work closely with staff and the executive board.

These roles require strategic planning and leadership skills, which a master’s in leadership program can help individuals strengthen. Nonprofit executive directors have a median annual salary of around $83,000, according to May 2026 Payscale data.

Healthcare Services Manager

Healthcare services managers, including hospital administrators, practice managers, and nursing home administrators, train and supervise administrative staff in healthcare organizations. They also oversee human resources, development, and operations efforts in the healthcare industry.

In addition to specialized knowledge of the healthcare field, these managers benefit from strong people management skills. Healthcare services managers earned a median annual salary of $117,960, according to May 2024 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Executive Roles

Executives manage strategic plans and policies in the for-profit, nonprofit, and public sectors. They implement organizational procedures that align with overall goals, manage daily operations, and identify opportunities to improve performance.

At the executive level, professionals apply their leadership skills as chief executive officers (CEOs), general managers, mayors, school superintendents, and city managers. Executives reported a median annual salary of $105,350, while CEOs have a median annual salary of $206,420, according to BLS data from May 2024.

Human Resources Manager

Human resources managers lead recruitment, benefits, and employee retention programs for their organization. They also help mediate employee disputes and staffing issues. In addition to supervising HR employees, HR managers work with executives on strategic planning initiatives.

A master’s in leadership program allows professionals to build the planning and management skills needed for leadership roles in HR. HR managers have a median annual salary of $140,030, according to May 2024 BLS data.

Training and Development Manager

Organizations rely on training and development managers to oversee their workforce development initiatives. These HR professionals conduct assessments, determine the organization’s workforce goals, and develop training programs to meet those goals. They also evaluate the training programs to determine their effectiveness.

A leadership degree program helps aspiring training and development managers develop the strategic planning and program evaluation skills required for the role. Training and development managers have a median annual salary of $127,090 as of May 2024, according to BLS data.

Management Analyst

Management analysts and management consultants evaluate an organization’s processes and policies to recommend improvements. They analyze organizational data, interview employees, and identify problems. Management analysts then recommend solutions, such as organizational changes or new policies.

A leadership degree program enables professionals to build the analytical and management skills needed for these roles. Management analysts have a median annual salary of $101,190 as of 2024, according to BLS data.

Operations Manager

Operations managers oversee an organization’s day-to-day operations, including the allocation of human resources. Also known as general managers or operations directors, these managers supervise projects, staff, and budgets. Operations managers evaluate performance indicators to determine the effectiveness of the organization’s strategies and implement improvements.

A master’s in leadership program helps individuals cultivate the organizational management skills required for operations manager and other top executive roles, such as operations director or chief executive officer positions. Operations managers had a median annual salary of $102,950 as of May 2024, according to BLS data.

Earn a Master’s in Leadership at Belmont Abbey College

Graduate-level leadership degree programs are designed to enable students to build the theoretical and practical tools they need to lead organizations. The fully online MA in Leadership program at Belmont Abbey College focuses on the skills required for transformational leadership roles.

A top-ranked Catholic college located outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, Belmont Abbey College has a reputation for excellence. The leadership master’s program emphasizes values-based leadership, organizational change management, and innovation. Students enrolled in the program analyze real-life business scenarios to develop the analytical and leadership skills needed to drive organizational growth.

Learn how the master’s in leadership program can help you advance in your career.

 

Recommended Readings

Servant Leadership vs. Transformational Leadership: Key Differences
How to Make Your Organization a Data-Driven Organization
How to Successfully Lead Through Change

Sources:

IMD, “The 8 Key Leadership Skills You Need to Know in 2026”
Indeed, “Master’s in Organizational Leadership vs. MBA: What’s the Difference?”
Payscale, Average Executive Director, Non-Profit Organization Salary
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Human Resources Managers
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Management Analysts
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Medical and Health Services Managers
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Top Executives
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Training and Development Managers
World Economic Forum, “The Future of Jobs Report 2025”

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How classical education can be an antidote to AI

By: Thomas Varacalli
Originally Published by Religious News Service

(RNS) — In his 1939 essay “Learning in Wartime,” C.S. Lewis posed the question of whether it was still worthwhile to study while one’s country was at war. His audience was full of young men with a sense of foreboding for the safety of their country, the lives of their friends serving in the army and their own possible enlistment.

As a Christian thinker, Lewis answered in the affirmative, arguing that it was very appropriate for men to continue their studies while they could. “Life has never been normal,” Lewis writes, and therefore, the belief that education should occur only in times of normalcy is unfounded. No war can ever eradicate our pursuit of truth, meaning and happiness. Therefore, he argues, these should be pursued vigorously, even during times of imminent danger.

The advent of artificial intelligence brings similar feelings of foreboding and disruption. Some Americans fear they might lose their jobs to AI. Teachers, parents and administrators are urgently discussing how AI might change the classroom. Some view AI as a harbinger of welcome efficiency, whereby students can avoid the thankless grunt work of memorization and other tasks, enabling them to use their newfound time for more creative output. Others fear that AI could unleash a lazier, less literate society, more dependent on technology and less likely to engage in independent thinking.

While the future remains unknown, I’m more inclined to credit the less optimistic AI prediction.

I do not fear AI, nor do I doubt that AI can have some benefits. But I think AI is more likely to harm education than help it, even if it is used simply as a supplementary tool to a traditional education, and I fear the level of trust some are placing in it. There are certain educational pillars for the young — such as grammar, memorization, composition, recitation, discipline, endurance and the general trial and error of solving a problem — that reliance on AI and its shortcuts is likely to weaken.

In this time of uncertainty, we should look to Lewis as our guide. Lewis’ defense of education was not antiquarian. He didn’t encourage his students to continue their studies simply because that was what previous generations had done. He wanted his audience to continue learning because it was better for their souls. Centered on the pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful — a reflection of God’s own nature  — genuine education was directed to a higher end. If his students were to be drafted, and the prospect of death loomed even larger, then they would be able to face death armed with a good education. To Lewis, this meant a classical education.

In its substance, classical education consists of the seven liberal arts: the trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. Grammar describes the world through the symbols we call words, making all the arts communicable. Logic disciplines our reason to decipher between true and false, so that we can make rational, rather than emotional, decisions. Rhetoric teaches us how to persuade, so that we can engage in political life civilly and peaceably. The quadrivium, meanwhile, explores number, space, harmony and order, coming to know reality in its truth, goodness and beauty through essential, knowable structure.

In its aims and essentials, classical education is the best that a student can receive. It is a comprehensive education because it consists of both a distinct perspective on human nature alongside a sophisticated, matching framework for the liberal arts. Classical education upholds an objective reality knowable through human reason. It affirms a right and a wrong, a good and a bad, a true and a false. Ideally, it inspires virtue through the witness of moral teachers and through a culture that habituates students to courage, moderation, prudence and justice. It upholds the rationality of human beings and teaches that the passions and emotions are subject to reason. And in contrast to today’s increasingly common assumption that diminishes the dignity of personhood, classical education views human beings as a composite of body and soul, with the soul as supreme. Just as there is order in the universe, students must find order in themselves by developing their intellects and wills to act in accordance with nature.

The Christian tradition grounds classical education even more deeply: Human beings are made in the image of God. Our capacity for reason, moral judgment, creativity and love is not an accidental evolutionary feature but part of our created nature. Education therefore cultivates gifts that belong properly to persons, not machines.
When we consider what AI lacks in light of this, the prospect of bringing the technology into education becomes troubling. AI doesn’t know the truth; it merely compiles data, which may or may not be accurate, from the range of texts at its disposal. It cannot possess wisdom or moral judgment. It does not reason. It has neither intellect nor will. It does not even have the sentience of an animal. Lacking both body and soul, AI cannot wonder or understand; it cannot pursue or comprehend any of the seven liberal arts.

Following Lewis’ example, I want to avoid antiquarian arguments in expressing my skepticism about AI. I don’t oppose it on the grounds that it is new, or that it represents a departure from previous ways of learning. I want students to receive the best possible education, and I am concerned that AI shortcuts will impoverish learning. After all, it is better to know how to spell a word unaided than to need technology to spell it. It is better to memorize the state capitals and be able to recognize them than to be ignorant of basic geography. It is better to compose a five-paragraph essay from scratch than to need structural tips from a bot. It is better to spend the time learning long division (even after several mistakes) than to rely on AI to make the calculations. It is better to sit still in class, reading a paper book, than to stare at a screen with its inbuilt distractions, and it is certainly better to read a book than to access an AI summary.

If students who don’t use AI in school need to use it in future employment, they will have the immense benefit of knowing how to do tasks both with and without AI assistance, as educated adults know how to do long division with and without a calculator. And as AI disrupts job markets, those who can reason well without its aid have the most to gain. 

What makes AI so dangerous is that it appears to be wise, rational, volitional and sentient. As human beings, we are too easily duped into attributing these characteristics to what is, essentially, only sophisticated pattern recognition and reformulation. To think critically and probingly about artificial intelligence, we need first to have adequately reflected and contemplated our own nature. Classical education is the way in which we, as human beings, can best come to know ourselves. Therefore, as Lewis warned us, let us not be too distracted by the manmade noise of our era, but instead direct our gaze to those things that are eternal.

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