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