The Wright College Great Books Symposium Journal is one of special importance. It is one of the only two-year-college academic journal in the country created, composed, peer reviewed and edited by students. The passion and diligence of these students have made this project a reality.1
The idea of the GBSJ originates from a desire for Wright College faculty to recognize students’ exceptional analytical and critical research writing. Its creation was also a response to an unfortunate notion that the Great Books curriculum is not relevant in the community college setting. This notion was compounded by an even worse notion: that students in two-year colleges are not capable of writing proficiently about the complex ideas put forth in great works and that these works are inconsequential to their interests or intellectual and personal needs.
The first two editions of this journal, edited by Bruce Gans, founder of the Wright College Great Books Curriculum Program, demonstrated the relevance of Great Books, as well as the abilities of two-year college students to engage with the ideas contained in them. In the words of Gans, “The contents of Symposium lay forever to rest the objections by faculty and students that enduring works of the mind are beyond the abilities of community college students or inconsequential to their intellectual interests or personal needs.” In reality, as our journal shows, two-year student insight and learning produces scholarly essays of great subtlety and profundity, often brimming with intellectual excitement and originality.
Finally, the GBSJ seeks to serve as recognition not only of student talent but also of something deeper. We believe that the process of students’ submitting essays to be published by an academic journal will be academically and personally transformational. In the process of learning to write critical essays of publishable quality, and in the process of reviewing and editing them, students are also contributing to the Great Conversation about the essential ideas that challenge and edify humankind. In this way, the Great Books Symposium Journal is a unique way for students—the writers, the reviewers, the editors, and you, the reader—to achieve richer academic and personal lives.
1 All submissions are double-blind reviewed and edited by both students and teachers.
Access current and back issues of the Great Books Symposium Journal (https://www.symposiumjournal.org/).