Perspectives Program

The Perspectives Program is a multi-year core program that offers courses for students who want to develop integrated answers to life’s enduring questions. Inspired by the Jesuit tradition of providing a humanist context for professional and scientific education, Perspectives courses seek to educate the whole person, and to help students develop skills in critical thinking and practical living. The Perspectives Program currently offers core courses that fulfill core philosophy and another core area of study: theology, arts and literature, social science or natural science.

All Perspectives courses are year-long, 12-credit courses that study core and foundational texts. All sections are limited to 25 or fewer students. Class meetings often require small and large group discussions. Course assignments and requirements are tailored and assessed according to the traditional liberal arts of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric: students will be expected to read closely, think critically, and write and speak clearly and persuasively.

Most of the students in the program are first year students from across the colleges who take Perspectives on Western Culture, the course that pairs philosophy and theology. The other three Perspectives Program courses are Modernism and the Arts (philosophy, art and literature cores), Horizon of the New Social Sciences (philosophy and social science cores), and New Scientific Visions (philosophy and natural science cores). Full details for each course can be found by consulting the menu above.

Questions about Perspectives can be directed to Prof. Chris Constas, Director of Perspectives.