Roundtable Luncheon with Dr. Margarita Mooney

What is the purpose of a university? What educational practices support the proper ends of education? Do the liberal arts still deserve a place in the future of higher education?

Join us for a catered lunch and discussion with Dr. Margarita Mooney to explore these questions and how they apply to us in our context at UNC.

Dr. Margarita Mooney: Dr. Mooney is a scholar, author, educator, and public speaker with interests in integrating sociological, philosophical and theological approaches to virtues and the common good. She is a former UNC faculty member in the Sociology Department and is now a Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary where she teaches classes such as philosophy of social science, religion and social theory, and intentional communities.

In 2016, she started Scala Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to reinvigorating classical liberal arts education and preserving the ideas and practices necessary to maintain a free society. Scala’s reading groups, dinner seminars and travel events emphasize hospitality and friendship, aiming to help students connect their intellectual development with character formation and generating transformative educational experiences and authentic friendships. She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively entitled Living a Broken Life, Beautifully that explores the religious lives of young adults who have experienced traumatic life events. Her research has been funded by two grants from the John Templeton Foundation totaling more than $3 million.

Dr. Mooney’s writing was recently celebrated by David Brooks in a New York Times opinion piece.