The American Culture and Ideas Initiative provides students with an ennobling vision— a sense of a larger purpose and a higher calling through the meaning and beauty of the arts. Its overarching mission is the betterment of students’ lives and the public through a richer engagement with the aesthetic, philosophical, economic, and historical foundations of American society, with an emphasis on how art and culture relate to the lives they lead. ACII celebrates the American intellectual experience as it brings the breadth and width of Western civilization to the forefront of higher education through scholarship, curricula, outreach, and cultural training.