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

David Bird, PhD, Hispanic Studies
Steven Cortright, MA, Philosophy
Brother Kenneth Cardwell, FSC, PhD, Emeritus
Theodora Carlile, PhD, Emerita
Alexis Doval, PhD, Emeritus
Elizabeth Hamm, PhD, History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Director
Felicia Martinez, PhD, English
Brother Raphael Patton, FSC, PhD, Emeritus
Gabriel Pihas, PhD, Social Thought
Michael Riley, PhD, Classical Languages
Theodore Tsukahara, Jr. AFSC, PhD, Economics

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 eight seminars, the eight tutorials in mathematics, the eight in language, the four laboratories, a tutorial in music and the senior essay totaling 29.25 course credits. Note that the College further requires the successful completion of four January course credits, and of electives sufficient to complete Core Curriculum learning outcomes in Community Engagement, American Diversity, and Social Cultural and Historical Understanding (1 course credit), and to raise the total to 36 course credits.

Students who start in the Integral Program and move to another major are deemed to have completed the following Core Curriculum requirements:

After one semester: Mathematical Understanding, Scientific Understanding (including laboratory), SEM 001 - Critical Strategies and Great Questions
After two semesters: the above, plus ENGL 004 - Composition , SEM 002 - Western Tradition I
After three semesters: the above, plus Theological Understanding (Christian Foundations), Artistic Understanding (both Artistic Analysis and Creative Practice), the language requirement, and SEM 103 - Western Tradition II
After four semesters: the above, plus Theological Understanding (Theological Explorations) and SEM 104 - The Global Conversation of the 20th and 21st centuries

Prerequisites

Each course in the program beyond the first semester depends in an obvious way entirely on the courses taken earlier, making it impossible to join the Program later than the first year. In extraordinary cases, a remedial course in January may allow a first-year entrance in February.

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

Programs

Bachelor of Arts

Integral Program, BA

Courses

Integral - Lower Division

Integral - Upper Division