The Liberal Arts Seminar provides an opportunity for a
small group of students to meet with an instructor to explore issues of
ethical, social and culture significance. The word seminar comes from
the Latin word for seed-plot, a place where plants are started in order to
be transplanted elsewhere. In the academic world, a seminar is a place where
ideas are nurtured and where students cultivate their skills in working with
texts and presenting ideas and interpretations. In this seminar, students
will read widely and closely in a variety of texts to develop their critical
reading and thinking skills and to examine an issue that students might
choose to explore in greater depth in subsequent courses. The importance of
being able to read with understanding and critical judgment cannot be
underestimated. Academic success, professional competence, cultural
literacy, and intellectual development depend fundamentally on flexible
reading skills that can be applied to a wide range of texts. Reading with
“understanding” involves several important processes: comprehending and
contextualizing information; identifying meaningful patterns and
conventions; identifying key ideas, claims, and assumptions; synthesizing an
author’s ideas with the reader’s experiences and knowledge; and developing a
comprehensive and well-informed interpretation. Reading with “critical
judgment” is a similarly complex task that includes reading with a sense of
objectivity, asking questions about what a text literally says and what it
implies, evaluating an author’s reasoning, and assessing the degree to which
a writer has achieved his or her purpose.
These courses will be introductions to college-level academic study with
emphasis on critical reading and discussion. Topics will vary, but each
seminar will focus on questions and issues relevant to the liberal arts. The
course will emphasize the development of students’ reading and thinking
skills through close textual analysis of a range of works. The seminar also
seeks to enhance students’ ability to synthesize a variety of textual
materials in order to express ideas, formulate positions, and construct oral
and written arguments.
Liberal Arts and First-Year Seminars at Other Colleges
CART Coordinator: Jim Wallace