The $10,000 is given to a Yale educator nominated by students for fostering “intellectual diversity for students in and out of the classroom.”
Michelle Zheng
Staff Writer, The Buckley Beacon
On Thursday, Daniel Schillinger, lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Directed Studies program, was awarded the “Lux et Veritas” prize at the Buckley Institute’s Faculty Prize and Reception.
The $10,000 award, presented by the Buckley institute, recognizes a faculty member who outstandingly fosters open discussion and debate in the classroom. Those eligible to nominate faculty for the prize are current students, alumni, and other faculty. Past recipients include Amy Chua, John M. Duff, Jr. Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and Gregory Collins, lecturer in the Department of Political Science.
Schillinger, who has been teaching at Yale since the fall of 2020, coordinates the historical and political thought track in Directed Studies, a seminar-based program for first years that focuses on the Western canon. He also offers upper-level seminars on ancient historian Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War, the history of Greek tragedy, and Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan.
In his seminars, Schillinger emphasizes engaging with fundamental questions rather than contemporary politics.
“Truly open discussion has to begin with the basic or fundamental questions, and it cannot be blinkered or hindered by mere contemporary opinions,” Schillinger told The Buckley Beacon in an interview. “Sometimes open discussion seems to refer to the contentious exchange of opinions about hot button political issues. To my mind, that’s not really a conversation or discussion at all. That’s a kind of intellectual or ideological warfare.”
In October of 2024, Yale’s president Maurie McInnis adopted new guidelines for so-called institutional neutrality, in an attempt to constrain the political commentary of school administrators and spokespeople except in “rare cases.” The guidelines do not apply to individual students or faculty, a freedom McInnis credited to Yale’s 1974 Woodward Report.
Schillinger, a member of Yale’s faculty, emphasizes the need to set aside issues of politics or culture in the classroom.
“I’m not trying to inculcate any set of opinions in anyone. In fact, the project is exactly to leave those opinions behind and to approach fundamental questions,” Schillinger told The Beacon. “I don’t think it’s the business of a teacher like me to try to shape public or political life, and that to some extent, universities have gotten in trouble in recent years by suggesting, not just to their students but to everyone, that their mission is to change the world.”
At Thursday’s ceremony, which was held at The Study at Yale hotel, Schillinger reflected on his vision of liberal arts education and its role in higher learning. Citing Aristotle’s Politics, Schillinger, a historian with a focus on ancient Greek thought, explained that so-called liberal education predates liberalism.
“Liberal education stands against education that is vocational, narrowly technical, mechanical, or utilitarian,” Schillinger shared with the audience. “Liberal education is liberal because it’s not narrowly practical. … John Locke didn’t invent liberal education, never mind John Rawls. Liberal education is way older.”
This fall, a Yale Daily News review found that the waitlist for Directed Studies was the highest in known records—110 students, all vying for a slot in the fully booked 120-person academic program. Schillinger attributes the all-time high to a desire for critical and free engagement, a key pillar of a liberal education.
“[Students] crave a kind of liberation in their thinking,” Schillinger told the audience. “Because even as young people, they sense that they do not have infinite time. Best to read the good stuff right now. And because they’re trying to discipline themselves to do the hard work of interpretation with others who are similarly keen, they’re forcing themselves to be free.”
Outside of his teaching at Yale, Schillinger is currently in the process of publishing his first book. The book, Luckless: The Idea of Luck in Ancient Greek Thought, is in production with the Oxford University Press, and is set to be released next year.