About US
Dedicated experts with a proven record of success.
Our mission is to impart an education that will prepare young people to be principled, creative individuals of independent judgment, capable of succeeding and leading in tomorrow’s dynamic world civilization.
These include a focus on the objective basis of knowledge in every field, physics to poetry, as well as the relation between abstract ideas and real-world consequences.
We combine these methods with content from world-changing classic texts, modern science and economics, and a special emphasis on reasoning, logic, psychological self-awareness, and practical skills, for a content-rich program.
Students learn to think for themselves as well as implement ideas in the world.
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“Achievement and success require the vision of the possible and the ability to weather the actual.”
Marsha Familaro Enright, Founder
Meet Our Team
Marsha Familaro Enright
President, Founder, Chairman of the Board, Lead Instructor
John Joseph Enright
Member, Board of Trustees, Instructor
Malachy Walsh
Member, Board of Advisors, Writing Instructor
Felicia Goglia
Co-Facilitator, Assistant Program Director
Noelle Mandell
Operations Director
Andrew Humphries
Co-Facilitator
Advisors
Roger Baumberger
COO, SternAegis Ventures
Robert L. Campbell
Professor of Psychology
R. Paul Drake
Professor of Space Sciences
Malachy Walsh
Writer, Retired Advertising Executive
Joel Franck
Neurosurgeon
John Tomasi
Associate Professor of Political Science
Michael Strong
Education Entrepreneur
Jay Friedenberg
Professor of Psychology
Lawrence I. Gould
Professor of Physics
Eduardo Marty
Founder, President of Fundación para
Responsabilidad Intelectual
Michael Shermer
Publisher, Skeptic Magazine,
Adjunct Professor of Economics
Mimi Gladstein
Professor of English and Theatre Arts
Stephen R.C. Hicks
Professor of Philosophy,
Executive Director of the Center
for Ethics and Entrepreneurship
Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Author, Scholar
Frank Resnik
Retired Vice-Chairman
of Medline Industries, Inc.
(Emeritus)
Board of Trustees
Marsha Familaro Enright
Founder and President, The Great Connections
John Joseph Enright, IV
Owner, John Enright Consulting
Reena Kapoor
Product Leader, Gigster
Jim Kandrac
President and Founder, UCG Technologies
Sable Levy
Co-founder,
Texas Millennial Institute
In Loving Memory
Daniel S. Curran, March 6, 1930-September 30, 2019
Founding Trustee of The Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute (parent organization of The Great Connections) Dan was always an inspiration to us. He was a self-made man, hard working, energetic, and immensely generous in material and spirit to his family, friends, and many, many young people.
Impact by the Numbers
say they were “transformed”
become teachers and professors
volunteer later with Great Connections
maintain contact with us after their sessions
The Story Behind Our Logo
Our logo is based on this sculpture, called “The Atlas Slave” by famed Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti.
This figure seems partially entombed in stone. Part of him is hidden: undefined and bound. Yet what is visible is powerful, muscular and striving.
Perhaps you’ve felt like this before: like there are parts of you bound, restricted, unfree. Perhaps you know you are capable of more.
Many participants at the Great Connections have felt this way. It’s one of the things that draws them here. Like you, they’re a work of art unfolding before the eyes of others.