Give stock to Houston Institute

Houston Institute is an independent academic non-profit aimed to support students and faculty at the Rice University and Texas Medical Center communities. Houston Institute provides a venue where students can think deeply about the best way to live. Our main goal is to foster in students a habit of seeking and loving truth concerning life’s fundamental questions. Such truth-seeking thrives in an environment where students have the freedom to ask anything, where reasoned debate and respectful disagreement is encouraged. Such inquiries occur best in a spirit of friendship and in conversation with enduring philosophical and literary traditions of thought. Becoming such a truth-seeker will require living certain virtues such as courage, intellectual humility, and deep habits of study. We accomplish our goal by sponsoring non-credit student-reading groups, public lectures, and providing one-on-one mentoring. Though we are rooted in the natural law tradition–with Aristotle and Aquinas as central figures–and have a special interest in virtue and human flourishing, we look at the best thinkers with a range of views in a fair-minded way. All students committed to serious intellectual engagement are welcome, regardless of their views.