C. S. Lewis College

So, thanks to a posting on the MythSoc list today, I learned about plans to launch "C. S. Lewis College" on the campus of what is currently the Northfield Mount Hermon school in Northfield, Massachusetts* -- a place with no CSL connection (but then Wheaton, home of the Wade Center, had no Lewis connection before Kilby started the Center there, and that's worked out really well for everyone concerned). The campus was originally founded back in the 1870s by Dwight Moody (of Moody Bible Institute fame) as a seminary for young women --ironic, given Lewis's contempt for women's higher education. This new venture is a curious joint venture between the C. S. Lewis Institute, run by Stanley Mattson,** and Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma City based arts & crafts store, who are bankrolling the purchase. The college will be non-denominational Xian ("Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants of all kinds") and focus on a 'Great Books' approach (a la Bloom or Adler); they hope to have the college up and running for the Fall 2012 semester.

The main announcement is here (the gravestones you see at the start of the little film turn out to belong to Dwight Moody and his wife):

http://www.cslewiscollege.org/

For more details about their plans for the college, check here:

http://www.cslewiscollege.org/site/documents/CSLewis_12109_FAQ.pdf

And for a nice set of photos of what turns out to be a v. pleasant campus, set alongside the Connecticut River, see here:

http://www.cslewiscollege.org/site/gallery/clsc/gallerycslc1.html

--John R.

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*Northfield is in north-central Massachusetts, not far from the fictional Dunwich.

**the same people who own the Kilns, CSL's old home outside of Oxford, which they run as a sort of Xian boarding house; for more on the C. S. Lewis Institute & their work, see http://www.cslewis.org/