Jesuit universities, including Saint Louis University, use a foundation of core courses to introduce students to their missions. Fundamentals like math, language, science and history make up the requirement lists of each of the University’s colleges. But this institution maintains two hefty requirements that many do not: It orders that students study both philosophy and theology in order to graduate.
Reasons for the core’s existence are clear: The Jesuits, established in the tutelage of youth, stress catholic development; they cultivate well-rounded, renaissance men and women for others.
Universities across the nation, public and private, religious and secular, offer classes in philosophy and theology. But SLU makes these subjects mandatory for undergraduates in every field, in varying degrees. Students in the College of Arts and Sciences must take nine hours of theology and nine of philosophy. Business students must take six of one and nine of the other. Some engineering students take only theological foundations.
Grumbling undergraduates may challenge theology and philosophy requirements this time of year, as they tweak schedules and plan degree trajectories.
After all, not every SLU student is Catholic. The 2008 University Fact Sheet states that 37 percent of students are Roman Catholic, 21 percent subscribe to Protestant denominations and 42 percent belong to Muslim, Jewish or other faiths. Though great variety exists in upper-level theology courses, theological foundations focuses on Christian theology. Thus, some students are required to learn about a faith in which they have little interest or involvement.
Students know that SLU is Jesuit and Catholic before they set foot on campus, and some choose it for that reason, so theology and philosophy requirements should come as no surprise.
But there’s another problem in the requirements’ implementation: theological foundations is taught differently from class to class. Some professors take a “world religions” approach and advocate spending time in synagogues and mosques in addition to a crash course in Christianity. Other courses seem more like an apologia for Catholicism. And introductory philosophy courses tend to cover texts more than they encourage critical thinking.
Inconsistent delivery leaves gaps in the education that SLU aims to provide in the first place.
Philosophy and theology are requisites that make SLU’s core curriculum uniquely Catholic and Jesuit. They directly link SLU to spiritual aims and a religious identity. But greater variety in introductory courses-specifically, introductory courses that apply directly to students’ majors-would serve us better.
