Ralston College

Ralston College is a planned liberal arts college in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Its goal is the "reinvention of the classical liberal arts college in a form appropriate to our time".

Ralston College was founded on February 1, 2010. It is not yet accepting applications for admission. Its president, Stephen J. Blackwood, is raising funds to launch the college in historic Savannah and has obtained a pledge of buildings for its campus.

Ralston "intends to become one of the finest institutions of higher education in history". The college describes itself as "at once both traditional and innovative" and explains that "the standpoint from which it understands contemporary culture is radically discontinuous with the worldview that at this point in history informs most institutions of higher education". The proposed curriculum includes a program of common readings, wherein each year all students are required to read a common set of “supremely difficult” texts. It also declares that its "collegiate culture and student experience will be unlike anything ever seen before, and precisely in order to accomplish this it intends to make judicious if occasional use in a suitably adapted form of many of the distinctive customs that have characterized college life over the centuries".

Ralston claims that it "will not attempt to act in loco parentis" and that "there will be no restriction on freedom of speech". Their motto, "Sermo Liber Vita Ipsa" ("free speech is life itself") was taken from a speech given by Salman Rushdie at Columbia University on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the first amendment.

The patrons of Ralston College are Harold Bloom, Hilary Putnam, and Salman Rushdie. The members of the Board of Visitors are Mark Bauerlein, Guyanne Booth, Rhea Bright, Timothy Burgess, Anthony Burton, Mary Clark, Kenneth Cribb, Robert Dodaro, Donald Drakeman, Freeman J. Dyson, Stanley Fish, Reginald Foster, Frederic Fransen, Geoffrey Harpham, Mark Henrie, Douglas Hofstadter, Roger Kimball, Joseph Koerner, Alan Charles Kors, John Leo, Harry Lewis, Wilfred McClay, Michael Munger, David Novak, James Otteson, Jay Parini, William Craig Rice, Jane Shaw, James Tooley, Donald Verene, Elie Wiesel, and Todd Zywicki.

St. John's Episcopal Church in Savannah and its parishioners have been significant supporters; the name "Ralston" honors Father William Ralston, who was the church's rector from 1974 to 1999. The college has however declared that its name is provisional (they regard the permanent name as a significant naming opportunity) and that it plans to remain "without political, ideological, or religious affiliations".

On March 17, 2011 MindingTheCampus.com, a web magazine that appears under the auspices of the Center for the American University at the Manhattan Institute, published an essay by Harvey Silverglate, a Co-Founder and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, in which he suggests that the advent of Ralston College is reflective of a certain degree of dissatisfaction with what Silverglate sees as the totalitarian and corporatized character of many colleges and universities in the United States.