Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Speaker Series

About the speaker

Jennifer A. Frey is a professor of philosophy at the University of Tulsa, where she formerly served as the inaugural dean of the Honors College. Her research focuses on moral psychology and virtue. In 2015, Frey received a multi-million-dollar Templeton Foundation grant for the project Virtue, Happiness, and the Meaning of Life. She is the co-editor of Practical Truth: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Oxford, 2025) and Self-Transcendence and Virtue (Routledge, 2018). In addition to her scholarship, Frey writes for major outlets including The New York Times, First Things and The Wall Street Journal, and hosts the podcast Sacred and Profane Love.

Frey's July 17, 2025, opinion essay in The New York Times — This Is Who’s Really Driving the Decline in Interest in Liberal Arts Education — addresses the current tension between the enduring values of liberal arts education and the administrative pressures to reduce it in favor of vocational, cost-driven models. Frey stresses that students still desire deep intellectual engagement, but institutional priorities often undermine the very sort of education that cultivates freedom, wisdom and humanity.

Read NYT opinion