A TORCH DINNER
Saratoga Springs Holiday Inn
‘The Capacity to Do Something Meaningful’
An Evening with Philip A. Glotzbach
Philip A. Glotzbach
We’ll continue with Skidmore College President Emeritus Philip A. Glotzbach the conversation we started in February in Zoom. We’ll further explore the urgent questions facing young people and their families at a time when there is so much uncertainty as to the future of employment.
Young people graduating from college are facing the toughest job market we’ve seen in years. Tech titans are speculating that virtually all jobs in ten or 20 years will be performed by AI and robots.
So what’s the best strategy for a young person to follow?
In his recently published Embrace Your Freedom: Winning Strategies to Succeed in College and Life, Glotzbach notes that students too often approach college through what he calls the “ATM model”—a transactional exchange in which tuition is deposited and a credential withdrawn. It is a model that reflects the pressures of our time, but one that risks missing the deeper purpose of education: not simply what students gain, but who they become.
That idea—education as formation rather than transaction—will serve as a starting point when we meet again with him. Families today are navigating a landscape shaped by rising expectations, economic anxiety, and the accelerating presence of technologies that can both empower and displace.
Young people, meanwhile, are being asked to define themselves in a world where the pathways to adulthood are less clear, less stable, and more contested than in previous generations.
Glotzbach’s perspective is especially valuable here because it cuts through both nostalgia and alarmism. He does not argue for a return to an earlier era, nor does he accept the notion that technology alone will determine the future. Instead, he returns to a more demanding idea of freedom—what he has called “the capacity to do something meaningful.” This kind of freedom is not automatic. It is developed through discipline, relationships, and the willingness to engage complexity rather than avoid it.
That insight carries particular weight at a moment when tools powered by artificial intelligence are beginning to reshape how young people learn, write, and even think. As Glotzbach noted in February, the risk is not the presence of these tools, but the possibility that we begin to rely on them in ways that diminish our own capacity for judgment. For parents and educators alike, this raises a pressing question: how do we help the next generation use these tools without surrendering the habits of mind that make independent thought possible?
The April 27 conversation will explore that question in depth, while also returning to one of Glotzbach’s most enduring themes: that the college years represent a rare and powerful window for self-discovery. It is a time, he argues, when young people can “test drive” the adult selves they are becoming—supported by a community that expects growth, even as it tolerates missteps.
For members of the Torch Club and the broader Saratoga community, the evening offers more than a continuation of an earlier conversation. It is an opportunity to engage directly with one of the region’s most thoughtful voices on education, purpose, and the evolving meaning of adulthood—and to consider, together, what it will take to support young people not just in succeeding, but in becoming.
To Join Us for Dinner Before the Presentation
Dinner will be at the Saratoga Springs Holiday Inn starting with a cash bar at 5:30 p.m. $40 payable by cash
or check at the door. To make a reservation, email Richard Lynch at torchman999@gmail.com.