The Core Curriculum is more than a set of required courses. By learning through the Core, you will develop a foundation of knowledge and skills that are the hallmarks of an Ignatian education as well as essential to good citizenship in the world of the 21st Century. These goals are:
  1. Writing Intensive
    Students will demonstrate basic and advanced skills in analyzing and representing ideas through strong written prose.
  2. Information Literacy
    Students will demonstrate basic skills in finding, processing, and using information in a variety of forms.
  3. Catholic Jesuit Tradition
    Students will demonstrate understanding of the nature and influence of the Catholic Jesuit tradition.
  4. Breadth of Knowledge
    Students will be able to reflect about their inner lives, to consider how attention to the life of the mind bears upon reality, to discern the human relationship to the natural world and to social institutions through a broad experience of the liberal arts.
    • Field 1 Religious Studies and Theology
      Students will be able to gain a clearer understanding of the role which religion plays in human life through a careful and systematic examination of religious ideas, institutions, values, or patterns of belief and practice.
    • Field 2 Philosophy
      Students will be able to understand, articulate, and evaluate the values, principles, and assumptions on which individual and social decisions rest.
    • Field 3 Arts
      Students will be able to understand the aesthetic dimension of creative work in the fine arts and/or literature and to articulate how that creative work mirrors and shapes human experience.
    • Field 4 History
      Students will be able to understand how historians use evidence to study the recorded past, to situate events, artifacts, and experiences in their historical context, and to analyze the process of change over time.
    • Field 5 Social Sciences
      Students will be able to explain, interpret, and critically analyze human behavior and social structures from the perspective of the social science through which the course is offered.
    • Field 6 Natural Sciences
      Students will be able to explain, interpret, and critically analyze the natural world using the scientific method from the perspective of the natural science through which the course is offered.
    • Field 7 Mathematical Sciences
      Students will be able to reason quantitatively, abstractly, or computationally about the world using the symbol systems rooted in quantitative measures, logical analysis, and/or algorithms to solve practical problems.
  5. Diversity
    Students will develop an understanding of the multicultural character of the United States. Focus will be upon attentiveness to cultural differences within the United States in many areas of human life.
  6. Ethics
    Students will develop an understanding of personal action, the good in terms of human agency, happiness, and living a worthwhile life. Focus will be upon moral issues, living well, and the frameworks that make living well intelligible, both personally and professionally.
  7. Global Awareness
    Students will develop an understanding of geographic regions other than the United States. Focus will be upon the histories, cultures, and/or political systems of countries across the globe.
  8. Justice
    Students will develop an understanding of the nature of justice, including the tension between justice and power, as well as the causes of injustice. Focus will be upon the promotion of justice.
  9. Oral Communication
    Students will enhance their abilities to communicate effectively and appropriately in a range of contexts, practicing their skills at both sending and receiving messages.
  10. Public Service
    Students will be able to reflect upon the goals of the core curriculum by developing a sense of the value of public service and leadership.