A community lecture with Dr. Ryan Olson
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to invite you to join the campus community for a lecture on the necessity of character, delivered by Dr. Ryan Olson, on Wednesday October 29, 2025 at 4pm in the Wortmann Ballroom.
Ryan S. Olson is a Research Professor at the University of Virginia and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture (IASC). He also serves as co-chair of the Colloquy on Culture and Formation, a major IASC initiative.
Olson earned his doctorate in Classics from University of Oxford. Before his UVA appointment he was a Fellow in Late Antiquity at the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard University.
Among his published works are The Necessity of Character: Moral Formation and Leadership and The Content of Their Character: Inquires into the Varieties of Moral Formation.
Olson’s scholarly work coincides with Roanoke College’s Imperative 3. His work centers on how character is formed in modern institutional and cultural contexts, exploring how changing cultural structures (e.g., the decline of stable authority, increased individualization) affect how young people develop virtue, identity, and moral formation. His work also addresses practical applications: how schools, universities, and other institutions might integrate character education, moral formation, and leadership cultivation to respond to the social shifts of late modernity.
Olson’s work bridges classical scholarship with modern concerns about character, virtue, and moral leadership. By situating contemporary educational and cultural challenges in a broader historical-cultural perspective, he offers fresh conceptual tools for thinking about how institutions might foster good character in turbulent contexts.
At UVA and beyond, his involvement helps catalyze research and dialogue around how character formation can be embedded in curricula, institutional practices, and cultural life. His dual anchoring in classical studies and character formation gives him a distinctive voice in debates about moral education, leadership, and virtue in the 21st century.
Please also stick around after the lecture for a faculty and staff gathering with the Board of Trustees from 5-6pm.
Frank Shushok, Jr., Ph.D., President