Last week, on 16-17 September 2026, we held our first ever in-person event, Human Formation in the Digital Age.
The conference was an unqualified success. I do not mean it could not be improved—there are always things that can be done better. But I mean that it accomplished its purposes better than I could have hoped. It brought together a very diverse range of people into a common conversation, towards a common goal. It not only produced great conversations about human formation, but I think helped us all become a bit better formed as humans.
As the founder of the Lyceum Institute, now in its seventh year, I was moved, I am moved. A project like ours does not measure success in numbers or dollars. Rather, our success consists in the qualitative improvement of human living, especially in the life of the mind.
Today, a week removed from the conference’s beginning, I find my mind feels more alive than ever. I see new possibilities stemming from the new relationships formed and old relationships strengthened by this gathering of people.
The People
Somewhere between 35-40 people attended. I had hoped for more—but I am glad we had this group. The small number in a short time allowed for unparalleled cohesion and familiarity. Most people had a chance to talk to almost everyone. Our first day was dedicated solely to such conversation; having no presentations allowed everyone simply to mingle and learn about what had drawn us together.
In retrospect, we probably could have used a little more structure, but I believe it was good to allow the conversations to unfold naturally. Our afternoon conversations blended seamlessly into an in-person Happy Hour (rather than our usual online variant), where we continued discussing the possibilities of remaining profoundly human.
Perhaps most interesting to me: despite our very varied backgrounds and histories and the relationships through which we came to know one another—as teachers and students, friends or colleagues, invited lecturers or attendees—credentials and “status” were far in the background. Distinctions between us served only to highlight the unity of our purpose.
The Presentations
There will be much more to say about the three guiding presentations, given by Drs. Mariele Courtois (Benedictine College), Matthew Minerd (Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology & Lyceum Faculty Fellow), and Read Mercer Schuchardt (Wheaton College), which were recorded and will be posted in the near future for all to see and hear.
One found a marked difference in personality, style, and content, but a commonality in how their thoughts oriented us towards what it means for being human in this digital, AI-saturated age. Copious notes were taken by the audience, and lively question & answer sessions followed.
Principal among the common themes to emerge: our conversations themselves draw us into relationships irreducible to the particular words, signs, or symbols by which they are conducted. A qualitative difference exists in the presence of persons united in purpose, deepened through those relations, and which makes us more fully ourselves. Technological development need not be an enemy of this pursuit, but it must be subordinated to it—which today it all too seldom is—and yet as the conference (so it seemed to me) amply demonstrated, it truly can be.
The Conversations
After our guiding presentations, we took to smaller, focused group discussions, centered around a group of papers written and distributed digitally beforehand. These papers—covering topics on nature and environment, education, the nature of digital objects, inquiry and search, learning languages, cognitive security, and transhumanism—allowed guided conversations to mature and explore a variety of topics while remaining under the umbrella of human formation.
I found the movement of thought effected by this structure (conversation, presentation, conversation) to be incredibly stimulating—my mind is still gathering together the various thoughts drawn out by things said.
When we came to our closing banquet, I said then what I will say now: we find ourselves in a dark time, where fear, anxiety, trepidation about what will come in the future seems to saturate every environment of communication. And yet what sprung forth from our gathering was simply an abundance of hope: hope that we can in fact not only remain truly human but flourish in the virtues befitting humanity, so long as we continue to find and form relationships of a genuine human kind. I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have seen such relationships forming in real time.
The fruits of this conference remain to be seen. I do not know yet what will grow from the seeds it planted. I am unsure what our future conferences will produce—but I am certain there will be future gatherings.
An essential part of being human, I believe, is falling in love. We experience this not only with persons, but with anything that by our experience of it brings forward into presence a good of immeasurable significance. It is no exaggeration to say I fell in love last week.
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