This presentation reflects on four pivotal situations from Dartmouth’s 250 year history – Daniel Webster’s oracular defense of the College in the 1819 Dartmouth v. Woodward case, William Jewett Tucker’s unprecedented 1900 response to the moral corruption posed by the Gilded Age, Dartmouth students‘ demands in 1969 for radical institutional change, and Dartmouth’s systemic contemporary answer to the question "Can a liberal arts institution survive the 21st century?". Pease explains how, on each of these occasions, Dartmouth’s leaders drew upon the capacious resources inculcated via their education in the liberal arts to turn these crises into "re-founding moments", that is, historic opportunities for the creative transformation of Dartmouth as well as the purpose and meaning of its liberal arts education. Donald E. Pease, the co-Chair of Dartmouth’s 250th-Year Celebration, is the Ted & Helen Geisel Professor of English and Founding Director of the Futures of American Studies Institute at Dartmouth. The author of Visionary Compacts: American Renaissance Writings in Cultural Context, The New American Exceptionalism, and Theodor Seuss Geisel; the editor or co-editor of 14 volumes including Cultures of U.S. Imperialism, Futures of American Studies,Re-Mapping the Trans-National Turn in American Studies, and American Studies as Transnational Practice; Pease has received Guggenheim, Ford, Mellon, NEH, and Hewlett fellowships; the degree of Doctor of Philosophy honors causa at Uppsala University, and the Carl Bode-Norman Holmes Pearson Prize for life-long service to American Studies. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx