Christendom College has expanded its Advanced Studies program this year with the launch of two new seminars, giving students the opportunity to engage more deeply in the Catholic liberal arts tradition from the very beginning of their studies at Christendom.
Founded in 2016, the Advanced Studies program offers high-achieving, intellectually studious students the opportunity to pursue specialized projects and coursework under close faculty mentorship. These new seminars, including an introductory seminar, will expand and enrich the Advanced Studies program, helping students even more fully engage in their Catholic liberal arts education at Christendom.
“Our new introductory seminar and the other new seminars will inform the approach of the Advanced Studies students to the whole of their Catholic liberal education, not just these new courses in isolation,” says Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Kevin Tracy. “The seminars will foster the sense of Catholic liberal education as the nourishment of the human spirit — ‘the restoration of man’s inner eyes,’ as Josef Pieper describes it in the essay ‘Learning How to See Again.’ Learning to see things as they truly are, in a world that sometimes makes this kind of seeing difficult, is the focus of the academic work that the students do at Christendom. As Pieper says, this kind of seeing is ‘the essence of man as a spiritual being.’”
The first new course, “Leaving the Cave: An Orientation to Catholic Liberal Education,” is offered to freshmen and co-taught by Dr. Tracy and College President George A. Harne, Ph.D. Students will read and discuss foundational authors such as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Sertillanges, Weil, Gilson, Lewis, Pieper, and Pope Leo XIII, gaining a deeper understanding of the Catholic intellectual life that will shape their four years at the college.
College President George A. Harne, Ph.D., is co-teaching one of the new Advanced Studies seminars, “Leaving the Cave: An Orientation to Catholic Liberal Education.”
The second course, “Tragedy and Theology,” is available to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Led by Dr. Conor Sweeney and Dr. Alex Taylor, the seminar will explore the relationship between tragedy and theology, first by investigating both Greek and Elizabethan classics (the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Shakespeare), then by examining the engagement of philosophers and Christian theologians with tragedy.
The Advanced Studies program, now directed by Dr. Jakub Voboril, continues to grow as an outlet for Christendom’s most dedicated students. For nearly a decade, the Advanced Studies program has helped students explore more deeply the profound questions that Christendom’s curriculum prompts. Students in Advanced Studies complete one advanced studies project a semester, whereby student and professor agree on a special project they will undertake and complete over the course of the semester. Students can also substitute one of the exclusive Advanced Studies seminars for the semester-long project.
Through completing these projects or seminars, Advanced Studies students typically complete additional reading, research, and writing under the tutelage of a faculty member, allowing them to explore their intellectual interests and gain invaluable academic and professional skills in the process.
This year’s expansion of Advanced Studies is a new step toward further development of the program, with students now being introduced to a more discussion-oriented pedagogy earlier in their time at Christendom. Ultimately, the Advanced Studies program and these developments are key manifestations of the college’s commitment to “Restore All Things in Christ” through its cultivation of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
Learn more about the Advanced Studies program at christendom.edu/advancedstudies.