The Transformative Power of Classical Texts | Todd Krulak and Taylore Miller

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy is joined by Todd Krulak, professor and Director of the University Fellows and the Micah Fellows Honors College programs at Samford University. They are also joined by Taylore Miller, the new Director of College Partnerships at CLT and a Samford graduate. Miller discusses her experience at Samford and Krulak dives into their honors college programs: The University Fellows program distinguished by academic excellence and the Micah Fellows distinguished by service. They also discuss the inviting yet unapologetically Christian environment of Samford, and what kinds of students are a good fit for the university.

Transcript

Jeremy Tate (00:02.357)
Welcome back to the Anchor Podcast. Folks, it is a special edition of the Anchor Podcast today. We have our own Taylor Miller, who's the new Director of College Partnerships at CLT and a graduate of Samford University. And we have Dr. Todd Krulak, the Director of University Fellows and MICA Fellows.

Assistant Professor of History, the Honors College there, one of the dearly beloved professors at Samford as I understand it. Taylor, Dr. Krulak, thanks for being with us.

Todd (00:34.386)
Thanks for having me. It's great.

Taylore Miller (00:36.856)
Thanks so much,

Jeremy Tate (00:37.977)
Taylor, we'll start with you. Recent three months in, four months into CLT, a Samford graduate. When you think back to yourself as a high school junior or senior, how did Samford University get on the radar? How did you first discover it?

Taylore Miller (00:54.914)
Yeah, great question. I love telling this story. I had never heard of Samford until my sophomore year of high school. I grew up in Orlando, Florida, grew up playing soccer, so knew about University of Florida, Florida State, UCF, all of those schools that were kind of right in my backyard, but

I remember one day getting just a marketing piece in the mail from Sanford and something about the language and the photography and all those different things were super warm and inviting and personable and made me really wonder what is this school in Birmingham, Alabama. So I talked to my soccer coach from back home, told him there's a school called Sanford. Have you heard about it? And he said, yeah, the program is great. The soccer team is great. It's a beautiful school. Let's get you up there. So I visited.

loved it. Everyone was so nice, beautiful campus, just so many things that were memorable. And I remember just going home and just telling everyone, everyone's just so nice there. And yeah, long story short, ended up attending Sanford playing for the soccer team there, had a wonderful experience, studied biblical studies in undergrad, master of social work from Sanford and just it was the best place ever, then worked in admission for a little bit.

Jeremy Tate (02:10.383)
Awesome, awesome, love that. Dr. Krulik, what about you? Has Sanford been a known quantity for much of your life or did you discover it just a few years ago?

Todd (02:20.136)
Yeah, not so long ago in the big scheme of things. I grew up in a military family, moved all over, but never really lived in the South until about 10 years or maybe a little more than that. I did undergrad at William and Mary in Virginia. To me, that felt like the South. because I grew up in the DC area, so even going down to Williamsburg was South.

Jeremy Tate (02:42.485)
Yeah.

Todd (02:49.404)
doctorate at Penn, you know, I mean, so most of my life was sort of in the northern parts of the country or the far west in California, even Hawaii. so I was actually, after I finished my doctorate, I was teaching at Tulane and a student there, you just was asking her, what are you doing for the weekend? I'm going to visit a friend at Samford. I'm like, great. Never heard of it. Pretended I...

had heard of it, but had not. But of course, over time, looked into it and found out what it was about and was certainly intrigued.

Jeremy Tate (03:31.637)
And tell us a little bit about your academic journey. When you think back about high school or your undergrad days at William & Mary, did you see yourself becoming a university professor? What was that like?

Todd (03:42.248)
I'd say quite the opposite. I think it's fair to say that if you ask people who knew me in college where I was spending probably more time as a rave DJ than I was as a student in some ways, they'd be very surprised. They were frankly surprised to find out that I was interested in becoming a professor. But that really

Jeremy Tate (03:57.475)
It's awesome.

Todd (04:12.328)
was accompanied by my heart change when I became a believer, a follower of Christ. There was a lot that changed, of course, and one of them had to do with my interest in learning about the biblical world, learning about the classical world, and going deeper into those things. And so to answer the question, no, I hadn't really considered being a professor at all.

until that heart change came.

Jeremy Tate (04:44.017)
Love that, that's beautiful. And this could be a question for Taylor or for Dr. Krulak. I'm wondering if our folks may be listening right now. Maybe they've never heard of Samford at all or maybe they're thinking Stanford, isn't that in California? What is this? I wonder if you could maybe provide us a brief history of this university.

Jeremy Tate (05:07.647)
Haley, we're gonna look to you as the former admissions person at Sanford.

Taylore Miller (05:08.184)
Yes.

Taylore Miller (05:11.726)
Yeah, yeah. I know that Sanford was founded in 1841, so it's been around for a good bit. It's been in a few different locations. Correct me I'm wrong, Dr. Krulak, it's already in Marion, Alabama. Does that sound right?

Jeremy Tate (05:19.155)
Later on.

Todd (05:25.104)
It was. It was founded, yeah, started in Marion, Alabama, moved to Eastlake, which is a neighborhood here in Birmingham. I don't know the exact timing on that. And then moved to Homewood in, when precisely was that? Do know, Taylor?

Taylore Miller (05:40.979)
I don't know that year. I'm embarrassing myself right now, but yes, right now, right now in Wood.

Todd (05:44.264)
I'm an ancient historian. We do have, we have here on campus someone who literally has written the history of Samford University and just published it this year. if you're interested, it's out there. Jonathan Bass is the author.

Jeremy Tate (05:44.894)
You

Jeremy Tate (05:53.797)
Taylore Miller (06:01.6)
Yeah, this was this was all just a ploy to plug plug this book by Jonathan.

Todd (06:05.958)
That's right.

Jeremy Tate (06:07.962)
So as I've been kind of processing getting to know it and I had heard about

just kept coming up, coming up. Finally went on campus, Taylor, is where we met just about four or five months ago. But it's a shockingly beautiful place. didn't think, not that Birmingham's ugly, but I didn't know it was that beautiful. It was really beautiful. And actually, if you look at a lot of the top 25 most beautiful campuses, Sanford often makes those lists. I it's really a stunningly gorgeous place. I was really impressed with the beauty of it. And I think just getting into classical ed, the connection between beauty and learning is

profound and something that the ancients of course understood. But I think one of the ways that Taylor your experience connects to Dr. Kruelik's work is the way that you were impacted by reading these foundational texts at Sanford. Now you were not in the honors program there, but you did read some of the same texts. I wonder if you could share with us some of those memorable courses.

Taylore Miller (07:02.478)
Absolutely, yes. So a part of Sanford's core curriculum, was called Cultural Perspectives when I was still, when I was in school, those were the two classes that kind of went through these great books, these books that are part of the great conversation, your Plato, your Aristotle, your Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., all of those beautiful texts that we've hopefully interacted with and have been impacted by and that are in the CLT Author Bank. I still remember

reading Niko Machian Ethics and y 'all just wink at me if I am not pronouncing it right. But I still remember reading that text in my freshman year. And I actually read it in a Christian ethics class with a very beloved professor. But that is a text that of course some students interact with in their cultural perspectives class. But yeah, I remember just.

Jeremy Tate (07:36.484)
It's great. Perfect.

Taylore Miller (07:56.3)
being, I'm looking back now and I'm very thankful for the opportunity as a freshman in college to interact with a text that invited me to consider what the good life really is and the importance of living with morals and values and how it feels good to live and pursue a life of meaning and a life of goodness and being a good person and all these different things. And of course, like,

Being a Christian, you don't try to be good to earn anything, especially to earn salvation, but just it feels good to be a good person and to pursue things that are beautiful and good and just and wanting to be a contributing member to society. I just am really thankful for the opportunity to interact with texts like that, even if I wasn't a university fellow or a micro fellow or these more intentional attempts at students interacting with texts like.

Jeremy Tate (08:35.177)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (08:47.058)
Thanks.

Taylore Miller (08:54.188)
Nekomaki in ethics, but it was a great experience.

Jeremy Tate (08:58.095)
I love that. Dr. Kruh, like many students, CLT test takers, they're coming from places like the Regent School of Austin or Veritas in Richmond, some of these great classical Christian schools, or they're coming from some of these great classical charter schools. In many ways, I talk to professors that are just kind of blown away with the K -12 formation these students have received. And many of these students go on to honors colleges.

And so I'm wondering if you can give us, because as I understand, at Samford University, you've got a number of different options. We've university fellows, MICA fellows. Is this part of an honors college or program? I'd love for you to introduce us to these concepts.

Todd (09:40.07)
Yes, so we have two honors programs, the University Fellows and the MICA Fellows, as you mentioned. So University Fellows is the one that might immediately resonate more with the audience because it is grounded in the great ideas, in the great books. We go, as I like to say, from Plato to NATO over the course of

for semesters, digging deep into these texts. it's serving as a replacement of sorts for what Taylor went through in cultural perspectives now known as core texts. And as an aside, that's something that I just love about Sanford is that it wants its students, whether you're in University Fellows or you're just coming in to play soccer, do something else. They want to give that foundation.

before going on to figure out what it is you're going to do, it's knowing who you are as a human being, as a Christian, and so I just love that about Samford, and in University Fellows we really kind of intensify that focus, right? We have three sort of key terms, vides, ratio, virtus, faith, reason, virtue, that really speak to our goal, right? A spiritual formation, intellectual formation, and moral formation, that these are

are critical to a holistic education, and that's what Sanford endeavors to give to students, and certainly that's what we're seeking in University Fellows is to produce graduates who have this foundation, who will go out and live lives of meaning and service ultimately of Christ, but in service of others as well. The Micah Fellows Program, speaking of service, is a very unique and fascinating program because it is

built wholly around service. Our students come in, in the first year they don't serve at all, but rather they take courses that offer a philosophy of service. What does it look like to serve? Well, to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And then there's also a course on the history of Birmingham. It's important to know the community in which you're serving. Then...

Jeremy Tate (11:38.462)
Okay.

Todd (12:01.864)
the next three years each semester there are 75 hours of required service and which comes out to about six to eight hours a week and it's consistent service. we work with them to find a service organization in Birmingham that really speaks to them in some way whether it's because they are professionally oriented in this direction or it's just they want to

Jeremy Tate (12:13.023)
Thanks

Jeremy Tate (12:18.943)
No.

Todd (12:31.334)
do something involving underprivileged children or what have you, right? And they're committed to this particular organization for three years. And so there's consistency of service. It's a win -win -win. The student obviously wins because they may start off in somewhat more menial type tasks, but they grow in that organization. The organization loves them by the end, especially

Jeremy Tate (12:55.447)
Good.

Todd (12:57.34)
there's wailing and gnashing of teeth as they leave because they've become valued members of their organization, then of course there's regular consistency with the people they're serving as well. So, Micah Fellows is a great program as well and speaks maybe to a different side of the Christian life, one that's oriented towards service, whereas University Fellows is more academically oriented.

Jeremy Tate (12:59.433)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (13:04.862)
Thanks.

Jeremy Tate (13:18.634)
Yeah.

Yeah, really, really beautiful. I can't think of anything quite like mycophyllas. This seems like a very unique, is that fair? it pretty unique within higher ed?

Todd (13:31.224)
We've looked for analogues, and I'm not saying they're not out there, but they're very few and far between, especially in a Christian university. We found something a little similar at Brown, but it's very different, as you might expect, in significant ways as well.

Jeremy Tate (13:48.335)
I love that and Taylor, know, you're you're when think about your story, I you came out of a public school in Florida, you know, four point whatever, you know, almost straight A's in high school, top, top soccer player. You kind of had a million options. You got full ride offers to schools like Vanderbilt, amazing places.

But your heart was captured by Samford and getting to know you over the past several months at CLT, such a big heart for Samford. I'm wondering if you could maybe speak a little bit more about the kind of the hospitality, the Christian identity. I I feel like I picked up on it, but it's kind of hard to articulate what makes it such a special place. I if you could speak to that.

Taylore Miller (14:28.002)
Yeah, yeah, very, very kind words, Jeremy. Yeah, I was recruited by some other schools and different things like that. But yeah, Samford was just super special. It stood out because of the beautiful campus. It stood out because of the people. It stood out what you're speaking to as well, though, because of the Christian identity. And I think something very special about Samford is

how unapologetically Christian it is while still being palatable. I think that is a very unique and hard balance to strike. I think that Sanford is so inviting and warm, but it's also probably Christian. And a lot of students that you ask, including me, will tell you about how deeply impacted they were in their faith and how important their faith journey.

Jeremy Tate (15:02.217)
Mm -hmm.

Jeremy Tate (15:14.526)
Mm

Taylore Miller (15:22.56)
was to them going into Sanford and maybe even probably just became more and more important to them as they went throughout their time in Sanford at Sanford. My admission side is coming out now, but we like to say that you set up a buffet table of all these things to partake in while you're at Sanford as far as the opportunities for

Jeremy Tate (15:35.451)
I'm

Taylore Miller (15:45.986)
to be involved in crew or be involved in campus outreach or be involved in going and pushing students to be involved with local churches on Sundays. there's a buffet table of all these things that you can be involved in, but it's really up to the student to pull up a seed and to partake. But Sanford has such a wonderful job of giving opportunities to partake in. And I was deeply impacted by it. know a ton of students who are or have been.

Jeremy Tate (16:10.439)
Thanks.

Taylore Miller (16:14.902)
Samford does an amazing job of just inviting people into a rich faith experience while also being such a fun school where you meet your bridesmaids and you might meet your husband or... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm a part of the Samford story in that way.

Jeremy Tate (16:26.152)
And in your case, your fiance.

Todd (16:29.285)
Okay, okay.

Thank

Jeremy Tate (16:34.321)
As this podcast drops, you will probably be right around your wedding day. So we love Jacob as well, a fellow Sanford graduate. Dr. Kruegelich, I'm wondering, when I think about the CLT partner colleges, colleges that we're very close to, on the one hand there's colleges like Christendom or Thomas Aquinas College, which are very, very Catholic in their identity and it may be an odd place for our Southern Baptist friends. And also great colleges like Cedarville, which are really, really places that are.

proud of their Protestant identity wouldn't maybe make a great home for our Catholic audience. I wonder if you could kind of speak to that there are a few other places I can think of Grove City Hillsdale where they've got kind of a cool mix you know of Eastern Orthodox Catholic Protestants in the University Fellows in the Honors College what makes a student a good fit in terms of faith commitment and also just kind of where they're at academically.

Todd (17:28.444)
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the great things about Sanford as a whole certainly is the fact, although it has Southern Baptist roots, there are many different denominations found on campus here, and there's a very strong Catholic group, in fact, and we have a number of Catholics in University Fellows, in fact. In fact, the now, he just finished up his term as the president of the

Catholic Student Association. It was a university fellow, and the new president of the Catholic Student Association is a university fellow. So in terms of our profile, we just want people who are deeply committed to following Christ, who want an environment, again, kind of going back to those three terms I gave earlier, that are seeking to challenge themselves to grow, right, to grow in those categories of faith.

intellect and integrity or morality. so, and obviously they need to be strong academically and all those things that any school and honors program cares about. But it's really as much about a heart posture as it is about an intellectual one. And so it's finding that unique kind of combination. And so the students in our cohorts love

to learn and love to read these great authors of antiquity to modernity, but they love Christ even more. And this, it's not a utopia, certainly, but they love one another well overall. Again, there's challenges here and there, but, you know, and that's what's so exciting about being around these students and with these students.

Jeremy Tate (19:11.797)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (19:19.391)
No.

Jeremy Tate (19:23.889)
We talk a lot about books on the Anchor podcast. I'm wondering as a professor if there's a particular course or maybe a particular text that you just love more than anything else that you get to teach every year.

Todd (19:36.806)
Right. mean, it's kind of an unfair question because I love too many of them. I just I could go on. I would say I'll just sort of speak. Yeah, I guess it maybe is a little bit if not cliched, it's trite. mean, I'm not going to give you some sort of arcane text. I'm going to go with the Odyssey.

Jeremy Tate (19:41.48)
I don't know.

Todd (20:05.06)
I just love the Odyssey. I love the sort of progression of the story, the development of Telemachus over the course of the narrative, the strength of Penelope, the sort of even development of Odysseus over the course of the narrative as well. And of course, the way that Homer so poignantly and touchingly brings

Odysseus home and reunites him with Penelope is just beautiful. So I always get a little misty when we get to that part, which is a little embarrassing in front of the students, but what are going to do? So yeah, I do. I love the Odyssey. A great work.

Jeremy Tate (20:40.201)
Hmm.

Jeremy Tate (20:47.478)
huh.

Jeremy Tate (20:53.807)
We've got a great tradition here at CLT that we brought Taylor into. We read out loud together.

a classic text and for one of our recent quarters about a year ago we did the Odyssey and Rachel Grabb who's now back at the Veritas School in Richmond, she led us through it and I believe it was her 25th time reading it cover to cover but with the same copy of the Odyssey and after that time she retired it because it was just two pages were too delicate and things were coming apart but it had grabbed a hold of her heart in such a profound way and she was able to pass that on and I think that that

often what's missing from a lot of mainstream higher ed, a lot of mainstream just k -12 schools, is education is fundamentally about shaping the affections, know, and even seeing, you you're, I can see your heart talking about the Odyssey, the way that it shaped you, but the way you've seen it transform students over the years as well. It's just such a beautiful thing.

Todd (21:52.168)
Yeah, it's such a great text for students, especially students in college or in high school, because it's talking about this sort of search for identity, right? That Telemachus is unsure of who he is, really, because his father's been gone for roughly 20 years of his life and here. And this is a period where our students are themselves searching for identity. They're either coming into a new environment

Jeremy Tate (22:08.735)
the

Todd (22:20.372)
and trying to figure out life in many different ways. And so to read this text is one of the very first texts we read. I don't know, I love that for them that they're experiencing someone who's going through roughly the same thing they did, but it's, you know, thousands and thousands of years old. And so I just love that.

Jeremy Tate (22:43.571)
of that and Taylor what about you was there when you think back about your time at Samford was there one particular text that was really just transformative for who you who you've become today?

Taylore Miller (22:55.136)
Yeah, I think...

Taylore Miller (23:00.206)
Let's see, it's a great question. I mentioned Nekomaki and ethics. That was really formative. And I think just gave me a predisposition to just thinking about life in a certain way. Yeah, just really questioning things like what is success? What is the good life? I don't know, just being predisposed and just looking for answers to those questions throughout college.

I also took a spiritual formation class throughout the course of my college career and read, this is not like a great books book, but I read the Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. And that was a wonderful text and it was really cool to interact. Yep, yep. And it just goes through the disciplines. So prayer, fasting, but also disciplines like celebration and.

Jeremy Tate (23:43.241)
Celebration of discipline.

Taylore Miller (23:54.838)
service and different things like that. And that was a really, really cool text to go through with other 18, 19, 20 year olds and to even practice some of those things as 18, 19, 20 year olds and talk about things like fasting and different things. That's not, no, that's something that a lot of college students get throughout their college career. So I remember that class being really formative.

Jeremy Tate (24:16.596)
Yeah.

Jeremy Tate (24:20.735)
Taylor, total admissions kind of softball question for you. Students listening, they are like, all right, I've heard this a couple times, I'm interested, what's a good next step for students and parents?

Taylore Miller (24:32.588)
Yeah, for sure. If you are curious at all about Samford, visit and or apply, especially if you're in the area. mean, please visit. Utilize your spring break in March to visit Samford. Beautiful, beautiful that time of the year. And then it's really ideal if your spring break isn't what Samford spring break so that you don't have to use the absences, but the excuse absences. But then also students are on campus.

Get out to Samford, experience it, request to sit in on a class, request to meet with a professor, request to meet with Dr. Krulak or someone else to talk about University Fellows and MICA Fellows and learn about those things. Visit or apply. Reach out to me, tmiller at cltexam .com and I'll connect to you. still know and love the folks over there.

Jeremy Tate (25:21.541)
It really is mind -blowingly beautiful place and just a really special campus. Dr. Krew, like final question for you. I want go back to the Odyssey for just a second. We were kind of having this discussion debate when we were reading it at CLT a year or so ago. And so first part of the question is this, is humility...

a uniquely Christian virtue or is it a virtue that in some capacity the pre -Christian pagan world also recognized? I'm wondering in connection to the character of Odysseus.

Todd (25:54.028)
that's a great question. I think that I'd have to have to think a little bit more about it to give what I would consider a comprehensive answer. But first blush, I actually, I think it is probably not uniquely Christian, but it is mostly Christian. I think it's fair to say in other words, and certainly when it comes to the Odyssey.

Jeremy Tate (26:20.629)
Okay.

Todd (26:25.585)
Yeah, there's not much humility to be found. yeah, even I'm just thinking, you know, even when he is sort of transformed into a beggar, there are signs that suggest he's more than just that, right? So the audience and not just the audience that's hearing the recitation, but also

the fictive audience, the audience in the story, they see there's something about him that makes him more than just a beggar. So even there, there's hints that are meant to say, you know, he's not purely, he's not been humbled entirely. Now, that said, right, we do catch him early on where he's just sort of weeping on the island of Calypso. And so he's

Jeremy Tate (27:01.396)
Hmm.

Todd (27:22.588)
He's reached rock bottom. But that's not positioned as a good thing necessarily, right? The whole point is that he's rebuilt from that. that begins as soon as he's given the green light to leave, he snaps into action and he begins to build a ship. And this sort of heroic qualities, the things that the Greeks would understand to be heroic qualities, they're latent and have been sapped from him to a certain degree because of

Jeremy Tate (27:37.609)
Thanks.

Todd (27:52.282)
his inability to escape, but once he's given that green light, those heroic pieces snap back in. So it's moving from a place of that's a position that's not enviable, that is not desirable to one that is, right? He's now becoming a hero and heroism is categorized by action, by doing things, by building things, by, you know, and ultimately by fighting in these types of things as well. So certainly in the Odyssey, there's not

Jeremy Tate (27:58.34)
Thanks.

Todd (28:21.62)
Again, first blush. There's nothing that really strikes me as being particularly favorable to being humble.

Jeremy Tate (28:31.174)
Love it. Could pick your brain about the Odyssey all day and just love what y 'all are doing down there. Dr. Krulak, thanks for being with us again, talking about Mica Fellows and University Fellows at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. And here as well with our own Taylor Miller, Samford graduate and our new director of college partnerships here at CLT. Taylor, Dr. Krulak, thanks so much for being on the Acre Podcast.

Todd (28:58.802)
Thanks for having us.

Taylore Miller (29:00.386)
Thanks, Jeremy.