Professor Kelly describes his teaching of the core curriculum course in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition at Sacred Heart University. He states "that our careful reading of Genesis, Augustine, Blade Runner, Gilgamesh, etc. provides them [students] with certain tools with which they will be able to reflect upon their own “contexts.” This is exactly what I ask them to do for their capstone project in the course. It is an assignment many are loathe to do because I keep it fairly vague, which requires them to do some self-initiated thinking and work. The payoff, however, has enormous potential. If I can get them to consider who it is they are and where it is they have come from it prompts them to consider who it is they want to be and what it is for which they want to stand. This, I would argue, is a central concern of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and a vital component of the education we try to offer at Sacred Heart University. If understood as process the CIT provides the means and the critical vantage point from which undergraduates at Catholic institutions can begin to consider the fundamental questions of human experience."
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/christopher_kelly/3/
This paper was submitted in 2012 as a Catholic Intellectual Tradition Research Project.