Curriculum

First Year Students take two courses that are tightly integrated. ASI 111-112 is a twelve credit-hour sequence in which history, philosophy and religious studies are brought together chronologically and thematically, and into which is inserted selections from literature and the visual and performing arts. English composition (ENG 114 or 101-02) uses materials from all of the disciplines in honing the students’ writing skills.

Second Year Students take three courses. They choose among the following social science courses: Social Inequality, Community, Self and Society, and Nationalism and Ethnopolitics. They also take one course in either philosophy or religious studies, selecting Social Philosophy, Philosophy and Literature, Faith and Justice, or Religion and Science. Finally, they take one Arts Studies course. These three courses build on what the students learned in the first-year courses and focus on contemporary issues.

Third Year Students take the final Core course, “Professional Ethics in a Global Community” which fulfills the final requirement in philosophy and religious studies. The course builds on students’ previous work in Core and prepares them to be ethically thoughtful professionals in multicultural contexts. Students in the professional schools enroll in sections that focus on their profession, i.e., business, education, and engineering. Students in the College of Arts and Sciences select to focus on either theories of international development or liberation theology.