As an SPU student, you will begin the Common Curriculum in the first quarter of your freshman year by taking the 1 credit University Colloquium. The word colloquium means conversation. The University Colloquium is a place where you can enter into our academic community by studying and conversing about an interesting problem or academic topic with a faculty instructor and student peers.
In your freshman year you will also complete the first of the three required University Foundation courses. The three foundation courses are centered in the foundations of faith. In these courses you will:
- Study and reflect on the Christian life, how our faith is formed, and what it means to live in Christian community.
- Study the Bible and how the diverse collections of the Old and New Testaments narrate the story of God鈥檚 redemption, reconciliation, and restoration of creation.
- Learn about the doctrines that are important to Christians and the ways they influence Christian thought and life.
The first year is rounded out by our two academic inquiry and writing (WRI) seminar courses.
- 鈥淲RI 1000,鈥� taught by English faculty, provides an introduction to academic inquiry. Its central purpose is to immerse you in the types of reading, writing, and critical thinking that will be required of you as a university student.
- 鈥淲RI 1100鈥� taught by faculty across campus, builds on these skills as you learn to research complex and important questions in a disciplinary context.
Two additional Core courses, taken after the freshman year, complete the Common Curriculum. These courses look at the intersections of Christian faith with contemporary society and thought.
鈥淯COR 2000鈥� explores how the modern global system was formed, with special emphasis on the history and patterns of human inequality that mark today鈥檚 societies. The course asks how we as Christians should live in a world that is both deeply divided and globally interwoven. You will study how the Christian vision for equality has broken through patterns of injustice, by introducing reconciliation into contexts of inequality.
鈥淯COR 3000鈥� explores challenging questions for the Christian faith that arise from science and modern philosophy, while learning to articulate responses to such questions in thoughtful, informed, rational, and charitable ways.
Note: If you are admitted to one of the special programs or if you are part of University Scholars, you follow a different curriculum specific to their programs.