Alvaro de Vicente on Choosing a College—Or Not
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
Release Date: 05/15/2025
Dr. Matthew Mehan on Imagination: The Raw Material for Thinking
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
Properly understood, the imagination is not something you escape to; it’s something you draw upon every day to make decisions, understand events, and communicate. This week on HeightsCast, Dr. Matthew Mehan explores the purposes of the imagination and the habits of wit and wisdom that help us insightfully process our world. We may think of the imagination at odds with reality. But, he says, cultivating the imagination actually makes us more capable, “wittier” thinkers about reality. Chapters: 00:03:05 Defining the imagination 00:05:31 “Good mother wit” 00:08:25 How LLMs undermine...
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Colin Gleason on Discipline: Giving Room for Good Things
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
by Terrence O. Moore by Harper Lee by G. K. Chesterton Also on the Forum: by Alvaro de Vicente featuring Colin Gleason by Andrew Reed Featured Opportunities: at The Heights School (November 13-15, 2025)
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Chris Vander Woude on Ordinary and Heroic Virtue
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
In 2008, Tom Vander Woude died saving the life of his youngest son. But this radical self-gift was really the culmination of a quiet life of daily virtue with a heart of faith. Chris Vander Woude, the fifth of Tom and Mary Ellen’s seven sons, now carries the story of his father’s life and death across the country, as well as sharing the process towards canonization that began this year with the assignment of a postulator in Rome. Chris joins us today to speak about fatherhood and the extraordinary man who exemplified it for him. Chris invites you to reach out to him at or . Chapters:...
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Alvaro de Vicente on Enjoying Our Children and Why It’s Important
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
They know we love them; but do our children sense that we like them? And how does that relate to their formation? In the intense season of togetherness that is summer break, headmaster Alvaro de Vicente recommends four practices to help us live more in the present and enjoy our children—even when the anxieties of life come knocking. Chapters: 00:02:17 Distinction between loving and liking 00:06:49 Four tools for cultivating “like”: 00:08:02 1. Express triple-gratitude 00:10:45 2. Spend unnecessary time 00:15:25 3. Find the humor 00:17:15 4. Pray for the grace 00:18:38 Why liking them...
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Dr. Joseph Lazilotti on the Sex Difference in Education
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
Months ago, Heights teacher Joe Lanzilotti took up a prodigious project: reviewing the body of popular literature on boys’ education. Partway through his journey, Dr. Lanzilotti catches us up on the diversity of scientific, biological, psychological, and moral perspectives—and how they cohere into a bigger picture of boys and where their developmental needs differ from those of girls. Framing the evidence with papal guidance from the last century gives us a solid starting-point to consider the education of boys according to their nature. Chapters: 00:04:09 The timeline of research on boys...
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Clare Morell on the Tech Exit: How Smartphones Undermine Our Parenting—and How to Reverse Course
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
The ever-changing tech landscape and the ever-growing research on interactive screens means that the topic must come up anew year after year. For parents trying to keep pace, Clare Morell has compiled the most up-to-date research into her recent release, The Tech Exit. Armed with the facts and interviews with dozens of Tech Exit families, she encourages parents that it’s never too late to reverse course on smartphones. United with other families trying to do the same, we can replace the new “smartphone milestone” with real milestones that emphasize the goods of the real world. Chapters:...
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Dr. Matthew Tapie and Dr. Lionel Yaceczko on Parental Authority and Thomas Aquinas
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
In 1858, six-year-old Edgardo Mortara is forcibly removed from his family’s home in accordance with civil and canon law. His Jewish family’s legal appeal invokes, to great effect, the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. Dr. Matthew Tapie and former Heights teacher Dr. Lionel Yaceczko join us this week to pull apart this difficult case with the assistance of St. Thomas, who gives a theological basis for parental authority in accordance with natural law—a useful perspective for our culture today. Chapters: 00:04:06 The Mortara Case (1858) 00:11:12 The personality of an original document...
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Christopher Scalia on Finding Your Next Novel
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
In a world competing for our attention, our guest this week admits: “It’s probably harder to read novels now than it ever was.” But their value cannot be overstated. The novel’s unique humanity, its careful and open treatment of the human experience, helps us to develop a sympathetic imagination, tuning our hearts and minds in a way that non-fiction argument simply cannot. Christopher Scalia, author of 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven’t Read), makes the case that it is a distinctly conservative interest to explore the Western tradition through...
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Joe Cardenas on A Change of Soul: Reimagining the Purpose of Vacation
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
As we conclude the school year, parents are turning their sights to summer and the much-anticipated family vacation. We bear such hope for rest and connection on these trips—but we can too easily end up chasing a bucket-list. Head of Mentoring Joe Cardenas offers a timely intervention for our vacation planning, reminding us to plan for people before places. Bringing his own family traditions and Crescite Week experiences to the question, he offers a new set of questions to help us plan and enjoy a truly transformative, restorative vacation for all members of the family. Chapters: 00:02:57...
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Alvaro de Vicente on Choosing a College—Or Not
HeightsCast: Forming Men Fully Alive
As 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....
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)