Letter to the Editor regarding the article “Ettal Boarding School to Become an Alpine Academy”
We read your report on Ettal Abbey’s plans for the future with great interest. The discussion surrounding an Alpine Academy deserves attention, as it touches on a central question of our time: How can tradition, education and cultural responsibility be brought together in new ways in a rapidly changing world?
We are therefore particularly pleased to see public interest in an idea that the James Loeb Society has been exploring intensively for several years. When it became apparent that the Ettal boarding school would be facing profound changes, our Society developed the idea of an Alpine Academy that could combine the Abbey’s intellectual and cultural heritage with the challenges of the 21st century.
In 2022, the European Alpine Academy was established. Since then, several Academy meetings have addressed fundamental questions: What role can the Alps play as a European cultural region? How can humanism, sustainability, science and cultural identity be brought together? Which partners from academia, culture and civil society can contribute to such a project?
This work has resulted in a network that today includes partners from Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Sweden and the United States. Its supporters include representatives of universities, museums, cultural institutions and civil society organisations. Our experience to date has led us to a clear conclusion: In the long term, an Alpine Academy can only succeed if it is conceived as a European project extending beyond regional boundaries.
Ettal Abbey in particular, with its history, its location in the Alpine region and its cultural significance, would be an ideal setting for such an initiative. For centuries, the Alps have been a region of exchange between northern and southern Europe. This European dimension could also prove crucial to the future of Ettal as a centre of education.
We therefore expressly welcome the current efforts to develop new perspectives for the school and the Abbey. At the same time, we would like to point out that valuable groundwork has already been undertaken and that experience and international contacts already exist that could contribute to this process.
The challenges facing Ettal are considerable. So are the opportunities. Perhaps the future does indeed lie in an Alpine Academy that combines strong regional roots with a spirit of European openness.
Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Söder
Chairman of the James Loeb Society
About the James Loeb Society
The James Loeb Society (James Loeb Gesellschaft e. V.) is dedicated to researching and communicating the life and legacy of James Loeb (1867–1933), the distinguished German-American humanist, patron and supporter of the arts. The Society promotes education, culture and scholarship and is committed to preserving and carrying forward the humanist heritage of the Blue Land region and beyond.