|
Educational Vision
Saint Anselm College provides a distinctive, Catholic, Liberal Arts education in the Benedictine tradition. It promotes an educational experience in which individuals are rooted in thinking rigorously, acting rightly, and serving humanity in a community that fosters the love of learning, educates the whole person and promotes the common good.
Graduates should be able to dedicate themselves to an active and enthusiastic pursuit of truth grounded in the liberal arts, the Catholic intellectual tradition, and the Benedictine monastic tradition; balance a comprehensive liberal arts education and specialized study in the major; pursue knowledge and wisdom fostered by our patron Saint Anselm’s vision of Theology as “faith seeking understanding,” which requires dialogue between faith and reason; and serve as ethical leaders and informed citizens who contribute to a more just community and world.
College-Wide Learning Outcomes
The Saint Anselm College curriculum is based on five college-wide learning outcomes that are achieved in multiple courses throughout a student’s core and major course of study. Critical and imaginative thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Written communication is the ability to express facts and ideas correctly and persuasively in writing. Oral communication is the ability to express oneself clearly and persuasively in oral presentation, to listen attentively and to contribute to a substantive exchange of ideas. Information literacy is an integrated ability to find, evaluate, and utilize relevant scholarly and other resources, and to maintain high standards of academic integrity. Moral inquiry helps develop students’ moral framework, instilling a habit of mind by which they continually revisit important ethical questions and refine their capacity to consider these questions objectively, systematically, and in an increasingly rigorous manner.
The Core Curriculum
The College’s undergraduate core curriculum includes a two-semester first year experience program (Enduring Questions), a foundational written and oral communication course, two writing intensive electives, and ten core requirements from across the liberal arts curriculum.
Enduring Questions is the College’s first year experience for undergraduates. In Enduring Questions I, students engage in a shared learning experience that welcomes them to the Saint Anselm intellectual community, and during Enduring Questions II students continue to explore key liberal arts themes while also fulfilling one of the core requirements listed below.
All first-year students also take a Foundational Written and Oral Communication course that provides basic skills, knowledge, and experience for effective communication. This foundational course is supplemented with two Writing Intensive courses that hone advanced writing skills across disciplines, emphasizing research, synthesis, and persuasion. These writing intensive electives are completed between the sophomore and senior year and are often taken within the major or in conjunction with other core outcomes.
The remaining core curriculum requirements are fulfilled by enrolling in designated core courses that align with the learning outcomes for the following requirements:
- Arts and Literature
- History
- Laboratory Science
- Modern or Classical Language
- Philosophy (2) - one Ethical and one Theoretical reasoning course
- Quantitative
- Social Science
- Theology (2) - one Biblical Literacy and one Catholic Theology course
In addition to the college-wide and core learning outcomes, each graduate program and undergraduate major has learning outcomes appropriate to that discipline.
Graduate programs and undergraduate majors have learning outcomes appropriate to each discipline.
|
