“It looks like this,” Jennifer Jensen often says as she walks to the big whiteboard to draw one of her well-loved graphs. Most students didn’t know she put this whiteboard together in her garage just before John Adams College opened in August 2019. Her charts always leave students wondering how exactly she manages to capture an entire historical era or philosophical idea in a single line.
It would not be uncommon to find renditions of Dr. Jensen’s graphs in her students’ notebooks, breaking down dense concepts with digestible analogies and shapes. She has parallels to every economic principle from Bastiat, Hayek, Friedman, Smith, and Mill at the ready.
While Dr. Jensen’s graphs are legendary, her contribution to John Adams College as its cofounder go far beyond her ability to break down complex issues. She founded John Adams College with the late Gordon Jones.
To the surprise of her students, Dr. Jensen studied design (not quite graph-making) at Brigham Young University. She later went on to get her MA in Political Economy and PhD in Constitutional Studies from George Wythe University. “I never felt quite right and was always searching,” Dr. Jensen mentioned, talking about her educational experience, “but I never could find what I was looking for. Then, when I went to George Wythe for my master’s and PhD, I realized what I had been missing: all the classics and everything that made up a classical liberal arts education. I loved studying for those classes. It felt like I was studying real things rather than just commentary.”
It was her time at George Wythe that would introduce her to Gordon Jones. Mr. Jones had just moved from Washington DC to Utah, and while they had mutual friends, Dr. Jensen didn’t meet Mr. Jones until they were both faculty members of George Wythe University.
Teaching was largely “unsatisfactory” for Dr. Jensen after George Wythe closed (a story in and of itself). Because of this, she developed an audacious plan to create a Judeo-Christian, Classical Liberal Arts College designed to prepare men and women to “enter the world defending liberty, standing in humility, and upholding virtue.” She brought the idea to Mr. Jones.
Everyone, and anyone, can have a good idea. But Dr. Jensen is not just an ideas woman. She has the necessary attribute that many dreamers lack: bravery and phronesis (as Aristotle would say, meaning prudence). Eventually, Mr. Jones was also surprised by Dr. Jensen’s grit. “This is really going to happen!” he said in the early days while they discussed preparations, waiting to interview professors at a law school. “If it is, we have to be prepared.”
“Every time I think about it, I’m shocked we didn’t give up,” Dr. Jensen said, in thinking back on that experience. “Who is crazy enough to start a college in this day and age, especially with no large donor backing? But somehow we bootstrapped the college into existence, and here it is today, amazing everyone!”
“Don’t give up. You can do hard things,” is the advice Dr. Jensen gives the most, and her students are the target audience. More than a punchline, this principle is the backbone of John Adams College and its founders.
The semesterly pep talk from Dr. Jensen is the most predictable thing about attending John Adams College. For the first thirty minutes of a class, either in the month of October or February, Dr. Jensen will give her overwhelmed students the secret of success: “Don’t give up. You can do hard things.”
In tandem with this motto, John Adams College students must master the lesson that Dr. Jensen learned at a very young age. In 6th grade, a young Jennifer was sitting in class when a person in a gorilla mask showed up. The teacher told the class that if they could guess who was under the mask, they would get all the money he had in his pocket. Dr. Jensen describes knowing exactly who was under the mask, but she was too scared to say anything. No one in the class was able to guess, so the teacher thought he had fooled everyone. “It made me realize I was missing out on things and it was my own fault,” Dr. Jensen said.
Eleven-year-old Dr. Jensen would be amazed to see herself today, as the current President, Trustee, Professor of John Adams College, secretary of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) Utah Chapter, former Adjunct Faculty and Graduate Dean of George Wythe University, and Adjunct Faculty of BYU-Idaho.
Dr. Jennifer Jensen is a jack-of-all-trades. Her childhood dream was to major in Physics and work with lasers. She was inspired by a math teacher who told her she would be great in physics. But her strongest passion was for reading. Her mom got a BA in English, and her father was a clinical psychologist. Both of her parents were influential in developing her passion and love for reading the classics. She described memories of long walks with her father, where they would talk and discuss the things they were learning and thinking about. These discussions inspired Dr. Jensen to expand her curiosity and find answers to her questions. Her father passed away when she was 29, but his passion for learning has lingered with her.
Dr. Jensen’s students are also familiar with her passion for baking. Her breadmaking analogies often accompany her renowned graphs. To the utter shock of her students, Dr. Jensen currently holds a motorcycle license, obtained at sixteen years old.
Some other interests include sewing, tole painting, cake decorating, cheese-making, quilting, candy-making, scrapbooking, clogging, violin, family history (she has written two biographies of her grandparents), interior design, and reupholstery.
Dr. Jensen studied Physics for a year at the University of Utah, mostly “playing around”. After one year at the University of Utah, she transferred to Utah State University. She changed her major to Design because it was better suited to having a family. It was at Utah State University where she met her husband. After getting married, she transferred again, this time to Brigham Young University, where she graduated with her bachelor’s. She and her husband had five children. For the next twenty-five years, Dr. Jensen was a homeschool mom, enjoying traveling and the unique learning opportunities granted to a homeschool family. During her years of studying education and working to provide a quality education to her children, she was eventually led to George Wythe University, recognizing it as exactly the type of education she was looking for. When her kids were older, she decided to enroll at George Wythe to get her MA in Political Economy and her PhD in Constitutional Studies.
“It’s not about jumping through hoops so a student can get on with their life of being employed. It’s about being transformed and inspired to do and be better,” Dr. Jensen said, referring to the power of a classical liberal arts education. Dr. Jensen believes that education is about transformation and connecting with the divine. She is a firm believer that a Classical Liberal Arts education will prepare students to make an impact in the world and in the various employment positions they will hold. The post-graduation success of John Adams College students is evidence of the merit of her conviction.
Dr. Jensen has not only made her own dreams come true, but has been the means of the fulfillment of the dreams of her students. Those blessed enough to attend her school and sit in her class know that they are not participating in something small and insignificant. They are not being trained to fulfill a role in society but to bring meaning and depth to their lives. Plato’s philosopher is one who has emerged from the cave and perceives the real things. The success of a school should not be measured by how many pass through the doors but by whether they emerge from the cave and will stand in the light of the sun, and see the real things.
“It is the duty of us, the founders, then, said I,” Plato wrote in his allegory of the cave, “to compel the best natures to attain the knowledge which we pronounced the greatest, and to win to the vision of good, to scale the ascent, and when they have reached the heights and taken an adequate view, we must not allow what is now permitted.” Plato is encouraging his listeners to be teachers and philosophers. He expounds on the duty of the enlightened ones to bring others with them into the light of the real things.
The ascent is understood the most by those who have walked it. The semesterly advice to “not give up, you can do hard things,” is what Dr. Jensen has learned through her own walk. Despite her students’ desperate attempts to persuade her to lighten their homework load, Dr. Jensen inspires them to scale the ascent like the graphs she is fond of drawing. The semesterly pep talks and versatility of Dr. Jensen’s life are the quiet voices compared to how she has lived out her greatest advice that, “you can do hard things.
Leah Johns is the Editor and Chief of the Rostra and is a sophomore at John Adams College. She loves reading, writing and engaging with the best ideas of the past.
I have loved having Dr Jensen as a mentor! Looking back at the past two semesters with her, I remember how every time I felt like it was too much, rather than making the assignments easier she would talk us through it, share tips, and urge us to keep trying. Somehow, that inspiration always makes the workload feel a little lighter and way more manageable!