Buchanan spent the next twenty years struggling to establish an institutional base for this radical vision. Buchanan's initial efforts at the People's Institute were followed by his establishment of the Great Books "Virginia Program" at the University of Virginia, where Buchanan was a Professor of Philosophy between 1929 and 1936. He was then invited to the University of Chicago by its president Robert Maynard Hutchins in order to help form a "Committee on Liberal Arts" in association with Buchanan's former People's Institute associates Adler and McKeon. However, this effort failed almost immediately due to philosophical differences and academic politics.