Alvaro de Vicente on Choosing a College—Or Not
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
Release Date: 05/15/2025
Michael Moynihan on the Father as a Guide to the World
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
From utero and into infancy, babies recognize their mother as being essentially one with them. So, being placed in their father’s arms is in fact their first introduction to the “other,” the outside world. The father will continue this crucial role as mediator and representative to the outside world throughout a boy’s childhood. With decades of experience and dozens of personal anecdotes, Upper School Head Michael Moynihan addressed the 2025 Fatherhood Conference to share how a father’s parenting outlook now will shape his son’s vocational and professional readiness to...
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Fr. Thomas Joseph White on Reading into Reality: What Is Intellectual Formation?
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
Our mission is to assist parents in the intellectual, moral, physical, and spiritual formation of their sons… At The Heights, we repeat these words often, including a paraphrase at the beginning of every HeightsCast episode. But what constitutes intellectual formation? What does educating the intellect look like? Co-founder of the Hillbilly Thomists and Rector Magnificus at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas in Rome, Fr. Thomas Joseph White, joins us for a deep-dive into the rich Catholic understanding of intellectus, habitus, ratio, and what it means to...
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Fr. Carter Griffin and Alvaro de Vicente on Vocational Discernment in an Age of Infinite Options
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 16:25). This week we’re joined by Fr. Carter Griffin, rector of the St. John Paul II Seminary in the Archdiocese of Washington, and Alvaro de Vicente, headmaster of The Heights School, to examine “discernment.” It’s become a Catholic buzzword, applied (or sometimes, perhaps, misapplied) to a number of life situations. Here, Fr. Carter and Alvaro discuss the methods and limits of vocational discernment—and the moral courage of commitment. Chapters: 3:45 Christian discernment...
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Colin Gleason on Manners: The “ABCs” of Virtue
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
by Robert Greving by Robert Greving Featured Opportunities: , donations for Jamaica hurricane relief at The Heights School (January 7-9, 2026 / May 6-8, 2026)
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Dan Lively on Formation for the Body: Lifelong Functional Fitness
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
In our school communities, we talk a great deal about moral and intellectual formation. But physical development, too, has an essential place in the whole-person, long-term vision of what our sons and students can become. Heights Athletic Director Dan Lively reminds us that the goals of athletic training don’t begin and end with high school sports. In fact, lifelong functional fitness is in service to every vocation. It ensures that we and our sons are capable of having a positive impact—on the world and in our families—for as many years as we’re on this earth. Chapters: 3:22 A...
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Dr. Jason Baxter on Why Beauty Matters: The Postmodern Pressure on Our Interior Life
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
One philosopher of our time claims that “today, the experience of beauty is impossible.” Dr. Jason Baxter, director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College, begs to differ. Dr. Baxter joins us on HeightsCast to unpack his latest book, Why Literature Still Matters, which looks at why such a claim might feel true in our digital age. Then, he talks us through why and how we should reclaim our experiences of beauty for the health of our soul. Chapters: 00:03:34 The experience of beauty 00:08:44 Byung-Chul Han: the possibility of beauty today 00:15:41 Marc Auge: still...
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Tom Cox on Being a Faculty of Friends: Making Schools into Communities
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
The joy of “being known here” is not just for the students. When a faculty cultivates friendship, it benefits the entire school community. Tom Cox has been a middle and upper school Latin and Greek teacher at The Heights since 2009. Tom also hosts The Forum Faculty Podcast, now in its second year, which gives a slice of teacher breakroom culture: the kinds of conversations, rapport, and friendship that are born of our shared work and life as teachers. Tom joins us today to talk about how important faculty friendship is to making a school into a community, and what schools can do to support...
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Dr. Melissa Moschella on Parental Rights in Natural and Constitutional Law
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
What are parental rights? Are they a legal stance—or a philosophical one? In today’s conversation, Dr. Melissa Moschella of the University of Notre Dame discusses the profound and practical implications of the parent-child relationship. She then explores how those conclusions operate in the American legal tradition, tracing from natural law to John Locke to historic court cases and the public discourse today. Chapters: 3:46 True rights imply true duties 10:04 Natural law: knowable through reason 15:00 The rights and duties of parents 22:32 Role of the state in the American tradition 28:44...
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Michael Moynihan on A Whole Education: Teaching Persons, Not Just Subjects
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
There should be no contradiction in pursuing hard sciences, humanities, and moral virtue all in one day. For upper schoolers switching classrooms every hour, or for teachers siloed in a single subject, it can be easy to mistake “education” for a series of distinct academic categories. In this rebroadcast from 2015, Upper School Head Michael Moynihan gives us a better framework. He urges us to look at how our school’s different departments present a unified and infinitively connective worldview—one that invites inquisitive engagement and exercises the full scope of human...
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Alvaro de Vicente on Parental Expectations: Being Both Perfect and Anxious for Nothing
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
, Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack by Walker Percy by Marilynne Robinson (2002) by G. K. Chesterton by Leif Enger Also on the Forum: by Alvaro de Vicente by Alvaro de Vicente Featured Opportunities: at The Heights School (October 18, 2025) at The Heights School (November 1, 2025) at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)
info_outlineAs more families scrutinize their post-high school options for virtue and value, the field has perhaps never been wider. Choosing a path carefully, with the right balance of priorities, should be the goal for every high school graduate.
Before serving as our headmaster, Mr. Alvaro de Vicente was the Heights college counselor. Over the last few decades, he’s witnessed an exciting shift in the way students and their parents can evaluate, prioritize, and choose a path after graduation that serves the whole person well. And while colleges are responding more and more to these good demands, Mr. de Vicente also explores how high schools and employers could keep pace with the changes.
Chapters:
2:32 Am I on the education treadmill?
4:16 Purposes of college: personal growth, financial growth
8:32 Keeping the two purposes in proper proportion
12:20 The wider field of alternatives
15:42 How high schools must respond
19:35 Peer groups on the alternative path
24:22 If virtue and value aren’t in balance
27:33 The future graduate’s options
29:54 The future of hiring
Also on the Forum:
A Short Guide to the Purposeful College Decision by Alvaro de Vicente 4/25
Advice for the College Launch featuring Alvaro de Vicente 8/24
Considerations for College-Bound Students featuring Dr. Peter Kilpatrick 5/24
The College Experience featuring Dr. Jonathan Sanford
Rethinking College: Why Go? How? When? featuring Arthur Brooks 7/2021
Featured opportunities:
Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025)
Convivium for Teaching Men at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)