Special Jesuit Liberal Arts Honors Program (SJLA)

Daniel Haggerty, Ph.D., Director

Available by invitation to incoming first-year students, the Special Jesuit Liberal Arts Honors Program provides an alternate way of fulfilling General Education requirements. Students not selected initially may apply for admission as second semester first-year students or as sophomores. Courses for SJLA program participants, who are drawn from many different majors, attempt to foster skills that University graduates have found particularly useful in law, medicine, business and graduate school.

SJLA Program Outcomes:

Students will display a comprehension of the history of and major texts in Western philosophy, theology, and literature.
Students will demonstrate eloquentia perfecta in speech and writing, stemming from a mastery of the elements of critical thinking, reading, and listening.
Students will show evidence of personal formation - a thoughtful sense of their relationship to themselves, to others, and to God- and of the role of cultivated community in personal growth, discernment, and life-long learning.
Students will demonstrate, based upon study and on personal experience, the ideal of being men and women for and with others.

Students are expected to become involved in extracurricular and service activities on campus if they wish to remain in SJLA. Many participants also study abroad, earn a double major in philosophy, and join the Honors Program if they apply and are accepted during their sophomore year. Above all, participants are expected to seek out and interact with their professors and other students in this community of learning, which is under the direction of Daniel Haggerty, Ph.D.

Electives

SJLA students should use their seven or eight elective courses to study history, mathematics, the natural and social sciences, and languages.

SJLA Curriculum

	Department and Number - Descriptive Title of Course	Fall Cr.	Spr. Cr.
First Year
	PHIL 120J - Introduction to Philosophy — PHIL 210J - Ethics	3	3
	T/RS 121J - (P) Theology I: Introduction to the Bible		3
	1st Yr. Seminar: SJLA 110X - (FYS, FYW) The Jesuit Magis	3
Second Year
	T/RS 122J - (P) Theology II: Introduction to Christian Theology ² — ENLT 216J - (CL, EPW) Rhetoric and Poetics ²	3	3
	PHIL 311J - Metaphysics ²		3
Third Year
	PHIL 431 - (P) Philosophy of Science	3
	SJLA ELECT - SJLA Elective¹	3
	PHIL 234 - (P) Existentialism		3
Fourth Year
	PHIL 435J - Philosophy of Self and Other — PHIL 401J - Philosophy, Politics, Economics	3	3
	ENLT 310J - (CL, D, EPW) Literature of the 21st Century	3

¹Choose one of the following two courses: HIST 250 or T/RS 342 . (Note: we will request a section restricted to SJLA students.)

²SJLA students must take a total of 9 credits in their sophomore year. Approximately half of the SJLA sophomore class must take PHIL 311J in the fall and ENLT 216J in the spring. The other half must take ENLT 216J in the fall and PHIL 311J in the spring. Approximately half must take T/RS 122J in the fall and the other half must take T/RS 122J in the spring.