College President Larry Arnn received the Great American award from The Heritage Foundation on Monday. Courtesy | Hillsdale Archives

Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn recently received The Heritage Foundation’s Great American Award at its Awakening 2025 Conference Jan. 10 in Sea Island, Georgia.

“As our country endures battles over our history, our language, and even the meaning of America, Larry Arnn’s steadfast belief that ‘all men are created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights’ has inspired students and faculty, parents and philanthropists, elected leaders and citizens,” said Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts when presenting Arnn with the award.

Arnn was selected to receive this award due to his commitment to educating students on America’s founding principles, according to a Heritage Foundation press release. 

Arnn said it is important that Hillsdale remains true to these principles.

“Liberal education is like Christianity,” Arnn said. “Its kingdom is not of this world. It depends upon a government that will protect its desire and right to look for and serve the best things. Hillsdale is a partisan only of the principles and the Constitution that protect its right to pursue its calling. It was built this way from the beginning.”

Arnn said he wants to help students at Hillsdale College defend liberty by understanding human nature.

“To teach Hillsdale students to defend liberty is to help them learn the ways of human nature, to understand the rights found in their nature, to understand the practices that protect these rights, to understand their obligation to help others know these things,” Arnn said.

Arnn has been a trustee of The Heritage Foundation since 2002. 

“Honor has more to do with the giver than the recipient,” Arnn said. “I admire the people at Heritage and the Taylor family, who founded the conference and the award that Heritage now manages.”

Tyler O’Neil ’12, managing editor at The Daily Signal, said he was happy to see Arnn receive the award.

“Larry P. Arnn truly is a great American, and those of us lucky enough to have studied under him know both his dedication to truth and the way he’ll spur you on to further learning with a twinkle in his eye,” O’Neil said. “It took hard work for Dr. Arnn to raise Hillsdale out of its crisis and turn it into the behemoth for classical learning it is today.”

O’Neil said Arnn helped spur on his passion for learning, even in his first days at Hillsdale.

O’Neil said he took Arnn’s Winston Churchill class, and he said Arnn’s lively conversations with students around the tables in the dining hall showed Arnn’s commitment to Hillsdale and its students.

“He would engage in lighthearted banter with men and women 40 years his junior, poking fun at their youthful passions and encouraging them to engage in deeper learning,” O’Neil said. “He knew how to have a good time and help others enjoy themselves, while prioritizing the high ideals of a classical education.”