Integral

The Integral Program of liberal arts is founded on the wager that it is still possible to appreciate and to evaluate all the main kinds of human thinking. It is thought that students in the Program can learn enough of the technical languages of the natural sciences, mathematics, literary criticism, social sciences, philosophy and theology to follow arguments in those disciplines. The Integral Program is not an honors curriculum but is intended rather for anyone drawn to a comprehensive view of education, an education devoted equally to the arts of language, to the arts of pure and applied mathematics (including music), to observation and measurement, to judgment and reasoned appreciation.

The program is divided into the seminar and the tutorials: language, mathematics, laboratory and music. During the fourth year, seniors are asked to marshal their experiences from seminar and tutorials to write a major essay and then defend it before the tutors and the other students.

The program had its origin in a two-year study beginning in the fall of 1955 and financed with a grant from the Rosenberg Foundation. Brother Sixtus Robert Smith, FSC, and James L. Hagerty of the faculty joined with consultants from Saint John’s College, Annapolis, the University of California Berkeley and Stanford University, to establish this “college-within-a-college.” The first graduates were the class of 1960. From the beginning, a confident grasp of fundamental truths, a healthy skepticism toward passing dogma, and a reliance on reasoned deliberation has marked the graduates of the program.

Tutors

Elizabeth Hamm, PhD, Associate Professor, History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Director

David Bird, PhD, Professor, World Languages and Cultures

Steven Cortright, MA, Professor, Philosophy

Michael Riley, PhD, Professor, Classical Languages

Theodore Tsukahara, Jr. AFSC, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Economics

Brother Kenneth Cardwell, FSC, PhD, Professor Emeritus

Theodora Carlile, PhD, Professor Emerita

Alexis Doval, PhD, Professor Emeritus

Edward Porcella, PhD, Professor Emeritus

Learning Outcomes

Students who complete the program will demonstrate:

THE CAPACITY for disciplined examination and discussion of fundamental ideas and questions, as treated or suggested by some of the great written texts; and
AWARENESS of variations in the kinds and degrees of knowledge attainable in different fields of inquiry, acquired through active use of the resources employed in those fields, e.g., experience, reflection, hypothesis, experiment, measurement and inference; and
ABILITY for close reading and listening, for precise verbal formulations of questions, distinctions, concepts, arguments, and judgments, and facility at addressing and responding to classmates’ like contributions; and
WELL-DEVELOPED COMPETENCE in written formulation of questions, distinctions, concepts, arguments, and judgments.

Requirements

An alternative, comprehensive curriculum, the program offers a bachelor’s degree proper to it. The degree is granted for the successful completion of the six seminars, the six tutorials in mathematics, the five in language, the three laboratories, a tutorial in music and choral singing and the senior essay totaling 74 units. Note that the College further requires the successful completion of two January courses (6 units), and of electives sufficient to complete Core Curriculum learning outcomes in Engaged Learning (1 unit), and to raise the total to 124 units.

Prerequisites

Each course in the program beyond the first semester depends in an obvious way entirely on the courses taken earlier.

Any course in this program with a prerequisite assumes a grade of C- or better in the prerequisite course.

Programs

Bachelor of Arts

Integral Curriculum of Liberal Arts, BA

Courses

Integral - Lower Division

Integral - Upper Division