By Ian Wesselhoff 

O n Feb. 5, Dr. Harold Mock, director of Georgia College Leadership Programs and interim assistant vice president for International Education, shared his thoughts – and countless others’ thoughts – on the enduring, eternal nature of education at the 13th annual John H. Lounsbury Distinguished Lecture Series on American Education. 

Mock was a high school social studies teacher for seven of his 20 years as an educator, and he has attended every lecture in the series since he started teaching at Georgia College in 2017. In 2026, he was the one delivering it. 

In a lecture entitled “What Is,” Mock began by calling upon attendees in the packed Peabody Auditorium to analyze a quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which he called a “classic John Lounsbury exercise.” 

Mock described how Dr. Lounsbury used great ideas and the writings of others to widen conversations, viewing education as an inheritance of all the knowledge that existed before us and will exist after us – universal truths that Aristotle referred to as “what is,” and what Lounsbury called “the things that matter.” 

“That is what it is to teach and learn in a liberal arts college: it is to occupy ourselves with the enduring questions of the human condition, to acknowledge the beauty of curiosity, the sacredness of inquiry,” Mock said in his lecture. “It is to recognize that learning is not about ourselves – it is about others, and that we are participating in something that is not fully ours … Real education is not about what comes next, but about what comes last.” 

The lecture series was the brainchild of Lounsbury, the namesake of GCSU’s College of Education, and to Mock, being named a speaker for this event was humbling. 

“John Lounsbury has a sterling, peerless reputation. In the history of American education, he is as important as John Dewey or Horace Mann,” Mock said. “He is one of the most influential minds ever to shape American education, and that he built and carried out his entire career at Georgia College, where I was both a student and am a faculty member now, of course it’s already very special. But to speak in a way that honors his memory is an honor.” 

Toward the end of the lecture, Mock spoke about the collective effort and humility it takes to build something that outlives ourselves – and the role that teachers play in achieving that. 

“To accomplish something great requires us to recognize that our greatest dreams and most enduring visions are often accomplished by others: by those we invest in, teach and mentor,” Mock said. 

Mock spent time before and after the lecture speaking with students, answering questions and engaging with their thoughts on the material. Senior middle grades teacher candidate Elizabeth DeRoth, who gave the event’s opening remarks, took much away from Mock’s talk. 

“As a hopeful future math teacher in middle schools, students really struggle seeing the importance of what we’re learning,” DeRoth said. “And when he mentioned the Cartesian plane and the man behind the math, he explained how ‘teaching is where the present meets the future.’ So I don’t want students to feel like we’re learning it just because it’s a set of rules or it’s just a formula to memorize. Rather, it’s the tools to move forward and ahead.” 

At the very end of the lecture, Mock was presented with a portrait of Lounsbury as a token of appreciation to thank him for his time and insight. 

“I love the degree to with the College of Education still so actively cherishes [Lounsbury’s] memory. He’s perhaps the perfect example of what my lecture is trying to achieve,” Mock said. “People still talk about him as a good teacher, including students who never once met him. He built something that outlived himself, and Georgia College is all the better for it.”

Header Images: Photos from the 2026 John H. Lounsbury Distinguished Lecture Series on American Education. (Photos by Janelle Tyler) 

Through its unique liberal arts mission — which encourages students to collaborate across disciplines in a wide array of experiential learning opportunities — GCSU is training the next generation of leaders to create a better world by solving the systemic challenges that cause societal pains. Read about recent projects and success stories.