Core Curriculum

At the center of the Rosary College of Arts and Sciences education is the core curriculum. The sequence of courses that make up the core curriculum nourish and sustain the student's other coursework: they help the student develop a comprehensive intellectual framework within which to integrate what is learned elsewhere. Thus, they help the student acquire the skills and knowledge that are needed if the student is to move comfortably and competently from one situation—one context—to another, before and after graduation.

The core curriculum requires students to take three kinds of courses intended to conduct them through such a course of study:

• Foundations: courses that equip students with basic skills fundamental to all other facets of the undergraduate course of study;
• Area Studies: courses that introduce students to area studies or “disciplines” practiced by scholars as they explore materials and apply methods of inquiry particular to their academic field;
• Liberal Arts and Sciences Seminars: courses that by applying multiple perspectives to the “big” questions help students integrate what they are learning elsewhere.

Liberal Arts and Sciences Seminars

All students enroll each year in Liberal Arts and Sciences Seminars, courses in which students consider multiple perspectives on personal, social, and philosophical issues by reading, discussing, and writing about the seminar topics. According to their class standing, students choose from a variety of seminars exploring the topics listed below.

• Freshman Seminar: Dimensions of the Self (100-level)
• Sophomore Seminar: Diversity, Culture, and Community (200-level)
• Junior Seminar: Technology, Work, and Leisure (300-level)
• Senior Seminar: Virtues and Values (400-level)

While liberal arts and sciences seminars are taught by instructors from various disciplines representing alternative approaches to the general topics, they share several features. As seminars, they are courses in which students, led by an instructor, investigate problems, design projects, explore resources, and share findings. They are, that is, courses in which students learn with and from each other. The seminars are thematic. Building on prior semesters, they take as departure point questions that are both universal and urgent, questions that engage the whole person throughout life. Because all seminars at each class level share a common general topic and a common text or texts, they place at the center of students' Dominican education a shared experience; they embody for students the distinctive community of learners they have joined.

Finally, the seminars are integrative. They help students see and articulate connections between information and ideas originating in other courses; between their coursework and their lives beyond the classroom; between their own lives and the lives of others—past, present, and future—in the communities and, ultimately, the society to which they belong. And, as seminars, they place the individual student at the center of this activity of mind: the student, in the company of others, makes her or his education coherent.

Specifically, the seminars help students:

• develop their skills in critical thinking, reading, writing, and speaking;
• synthesize knowledge they are drawing from other courses;
• learn to collaborate with others in building knowledge and understanding;
• reflect on matters intellectual, moral, and spiritual.

For more information, please refer to the Core Curriculum Handbook or call us at the numbers below or at (800) 828-8475 outside the Chicagoland area.