Chat with Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate

The Objectivism Online web site has published a transcript of their recent live chat with Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), and Dr. Onkar Ghate, a senior fellow at ARI.

The conversation includes interesting information, including an update on the Objectivist Academic Center, their plans for the future, and this information about the popularity of ARI’s essay contests and the current sales of Ayn Rand’s books:

Let’s start with essay contests. This year, for the second time, we will have received 14,000 essays from high school students competing in our essay contests. This probably makes ours the largest essay contest in the country. In addition, this year we shipped over 50,000 copies of The Fountainhead and Anthem to high school teachers committed to teaching these books in their classrooms. Imagine a day when we are shipping 500,000 copies a year to such teachers, thus ensuring that millions of college freshmen are exposed to Ayn Rand’s ideas in high school. That day is coming.

The 50,000 books were sent to over 1,000 teachers. Book sales of Ayn Rand exceded 500,000 copies for the second year in 2003. Five years ago there was no formal program at a university in which Objectivism was taught. Today we have such programs at the University of Texas, University of Pittsburgh, and at Ashland University.

In addition, there are programs in which Ayn Rand is significantly featured and taught by Objectivists at Duke University, and next year, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Add to that, starting this fall, the business schools at the Universities of Kentucky and South Carolina will be handing out copies of Atlas Shrugged to all incoming undergraduate and graduate business students.

See the full transcript for additional information from Drs. Brook & Ghate.