The Saratoga Torch Club will host a conversation Monday, April 27, with Philip A. Glotzbach, offering timely guidance for students and families navigating college and the rapidly changing world beyond it.
Speaking on “Finding Purpose in an Uncertain Future,” Glotzbach will begin his presentation at 7 p.m. at the Saratoga Springs Holiday Inn. An optional dinner with cash bar will precede it, starting at 5:30 p.m.
Glotzbach, who served as president of Skidmore College for 17 years, is the author of “Embrace Your Freedom: Winning Strategies to Succeed in College and Life.” Grown and Flown, a blog for parents with college-bound children, just spotlighted it as one the “Top 20 Books” to give a graduating high school senior.
Drawing on decades of leadership in higher education, Glotzbach offers clear, practical advice on how students can make the most of their college years, emphasizing resilience, balance, responsible decision-making, and learning from failure.
The conversation comes at a moment of growing uncertainty about the future of work. Today’s college graduates are entering a challenging job market, while rapid advances in artificial intelligence are raising new questions about which skills which profession will endure. Against that backdrop, Glotzbach offers a perspective grounded in experience and focused on long-term development.
In Embrace Your Freedom, he challenges what he calls the “ATM model” of college, an increasingly common view of higher education as a transactional exchange in which tuition is paid and a credential received. While understandable in an era of rising costs and economic pressure, he argues that this approach risks missing the deeper purpose of college: not simply what students gain, but who they become.
That idea will anchor the April discussion. Families today are navigating a landscape shaped by economic anxiety, rising expectations, and the accelerating presence of technologies that can both empower and displace. At the same time, young people are being asked to define themselves in a world where the pathways to adulthood are less stable and less clearly defined than in previous generations.
Glotzbach’s perspective avoids both nostalgia and alarmism. Rather than calling for a return to the past or deferring to technology as destiny, he emphasizes a more demanding understanding of freedom as “the capacity to do something meaningful.” That capacity, he argues, is developed through discipline, relationships, and a willingness to engage complexity.
At its core, the evening returns to one of Glotzbach’s central insights: that the college years represent a rare opportunity for self-discovery. It is a time when students can “test drive” the adults they are becoming, supported by a community that encourages growth while allowing room for missteps.
Reservations for dinner at $40 may be made by writing Richard Lynch at torchman999@gmail.com by April 24. Menu options are seasoned chicken breast or spring primavera. Those opting to skip dinner are welcome to attend the 7 p.m. presentation for a suggested donation of $10.
