Ralston College is a private unaccredited liberal arts college[1] in Savannah, Georgia. It describes itself as being dedicated to "freedom of thought and speech",[2][3][4] and is associated with prominent conservative figures,[4][5] with Stephen Blackwood as President, Jordan B. Peterson as Chancellor and funding from conservative activists including Paul Marshall.[6] Ralston College started accepting graduate students to its one-year MA in the Humanities in the summer of 2022.
In 2006, Stephen Blackwood and James Atkins Pritchard began fundraising for the establishment of an institution of higher education. Ralston was incorporated in the State of Georgia in 2010.[7] Among the members of its Board of Visitors are Vernon Smith, Heather Mac Donald, Harry Lewis, Ruth Wisse, Roger Kimball, and Jordan Peterson who was appointed Chancellor in May 2022.[8][9][10]
Ralston's first class of MA students began classes in the fall of 2022.[11] with classes held in the education building of St. John's Episcopal Church.[12]
Ralston College has been plagued by allegations of mismanagement and a series of high-level terminations.[13]
In March 2023, a member of Ralston's Board of Visitors, Harvey Silverglate, resigned his position decrying the college as "antithetical to the whole concept of a liberal arts institution".[14]
Ralston College's curriculum focuses on the liberal arts: after a term teaching Ancient Greek and Modern Greek in Greece, the following three terms of the MA in the Humanities focus on ancient, medieval and modern literary texts and works of arts.[15][1] Blackwood has stated that Ralston aims “to play a role in the renewal of the conditions for human flourishing”.[16] It also offers one online short-course, run in conjunction with the FutureLearn platform, on Samuel Johnson's Rasselas.[17][18][19]
The College has been authorized for operation and awarded degree-granting powers by the State of Georgia,[16] but is not accredited.[20]
The Sequoia Trust is chaired by Marshall, with his wife and son among the trustees. It was founded in 2015 and in the year to mid-2022 dispensed some £80m in charitable giving; its net assets stood at £417m. It gave £10m to the Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT); £1m to HTB; and £18m to Ralston College, a new liberal arts college in Savannah, Georgia which admitted a grand total of 24 students in the academic year beginning in autumn 2022. The college's chancellor is the controversial right-wing culture warrior Jordan Peterson.
The deadline looms as troubles plague the organization within and without. Accusations of mismanagement, coupled with several high-level firings, have followed the college since at least August 2022.