David Brooks

I am at the University of Michigan.

I'm at an office.

They stuck me in a few steps away from the president's office.

So if you need me to get any student into the University of Michigan, I can just pop over and talk to them.

Well, first of all, I've been there 22 years.

And I'm 64.

I figure I've got about 10 or 11 years of full-time work left in me.

And I thought I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't change.

I do think changing environments, changing situations is a good way to change your thinking.

So even though I was perfectly happy there, I thought I would change.

Second,

I think America's problems are less political and more sub-political these days, that we've sort of lost our humanistic core, a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning.

People are filled with resentment, spiritual crisis.

58% of college students don't have a sense that their life has purpose.

And so I thought to really address the issues at the level that I think they really exist at, A, I would like to write longer.

So at the Atlantic, I can write 5,000 words, even 10,000 words.

And at Yale, at any great university,

Reviving the humanistic core is supposed to be what the project is all about.

I thought I'd put myself more on a college campus where I could begin to think about what makes our soul sing?

How do we find things to fall in love with?