This Virtual Objectivist Club — produced by the excellent folks at the Objectivist Club Network — is a great opportunity for students on a campus without an Objectivist club to study Ayn Rand’s philosophy.

The Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) is a weekly phone-based/online discussion group dedicated to the study of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism. The VOC is being offered for the first time this 2009 academic year. It’s open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.

During the Fall 2009 semester, we’ll meet online to discuss essays and topics from either the Ayn Rand Reader or from free, online resources. Each meeting will be hosted by a rotating set of moderators, including Greg Perkins, Diana Hsieh, Kyle Haight, Andrew Dalton, and Kurt Colville. We’ll meet on Wednesday evenings at 9 p.m. Eastern.

If you’re a student who does not have access to a study group at your school, we may just be the group for you. If you’re interested, you can get more information and our full schedule at http://www.oclubs.org/voc.

Here’s more from “Keith & the OCN Team”:

I helped start the Objectivist Club Network (OCN), an organization dedicated to helping all Objectivist Campus Clubs. OCN is not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute, although we support them and regularly communicate with them to ensure our respective organizations are not duplicating efforts.

Recently we’ve expanded our efforts to solve a new problem: there are students interested in joining an Objectivist club where no club exists. Some of these students start their own club, but others don’t have time to start a club or do not find enough participants on campus to form a club.

We’ve created the Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) for these students — a phone-based discussion group dedicated to the study of Objectivism. Meetings will be weekly, beginning this September, each moderated by an experienced Objectivist. The group is open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.

My request: Please help spread the word to any students you know who may be interested in learning more about Objectivism. The deadline for applying to the VOC is August 31st. Students can learn more and apply at: http://www.oclubs.org/voc

Please let me know if you have any questions and we greatly appreciate you sharing this with others!

Back in the dark days of 300 baud modems and gopher, I was a tender young undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis. Sadly, I was the only person interested in Ayn Rand’s philosophy on the whole campus, from what I could tell. I definitely felt lonely and isolated — and I would have jumped at the chance for anything like the Virtual Objectivist Club. If you’re in that kind of situation, albeit with faster modem, I’d definitely recommend that you consider the VOC.

P.S. While writing this post, I realized that Paul and I met a whopping fifteen years ago as of last Sunday, August 23rd. That just blows me away. Shouldn’t I be using a walker by now?

P.P.S. Notice that one of your VOC moderators will be ME! Fun!