Professions and the Good Life

FAIN: AH-310506-26

Collegium Institute (Philadelphia, PA 19104-3605)
Daniel Cheely (Project Director: September 2025 to present)

The Collegium Institute’s “Professions and the Good Life” programs have two central themes–civic responsibility in the modern American professions and the relationship between religion and civic life. Collegium’s "Professions and the Good Life" programs challenge Penn's professional and pre-professional students to investigate how the catholic, or universal, humanistic questions relate to their vocational paths. These programs aim to help students find meaning and moral agency in their work. To achieve this aim, each academic year we offer programs that appeal to aspiring doctors, nurses, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and financiers. Each program convenes separate cohorts of 12-20 students for six sessions every semester: that is, 36 sessions altogether over the course of the next academic year. Each program summons ambitious students and exemplary facilitators at the pinnacle of their respective fields to discuss and appreciate the virtues necessary to sustain the American republic.