Baccalaureate Curriculum
Curricular Overview
College of St. Anthony of Padua
The Institute offers formal courses in four main areas: catechesis, college preparatory, adult life-long learning, and a four-year baccalaureate in the Catholic liberal arts.
Catechesis
The Institute provides families with courses and resources for the preparation for the sacrament of confirmation as well as on-going programs for adult faith formation.
College Preparatory
The Institute provides subscribing members with a series of courses aimed at preparation for university-level studies. Tutorials in literature, English composition, and Latin are already offered. More courses in mathematics, the sciences, and other fields are planned. In addition, homeschooling families can consult with the college instructors for course design and teaching advice.
Life-long Learning
The Institute provides a wide variety of courses aimed at the continued intellectual growth of the Catholic community. This autumn, the Institute is offering courses in medieval church history and on Catholic novels, with more courses planned for the coming year. The Institute also offers a series of short courses and occasional lectures, such as a presentation on the musical and architectural structures in Dante’s Purgatorio, a walking tour of the churches and neighborhoods of San Francisco, and a Catholic film series. Adult learners, college students from other institutions, and mature precollegiate students are invited to take the lecture courses offered in the four-year curriculum. Many of these lectures will be offered at night and on Friday mornings and afternoons for the convenience of learners who are not participating in the four-year degree program.
Four-Year Baccalaureate in the Catholic Liberal Arts – The College of St. Anthony of Padua
The College offers a series of courses in a four-year baccalaureate degree program in the Catholic Liberal Arts. The backbone of this program is:
- Great Books seminar;
- language studies;
- science and math tutorials;
- systematic lectures in theology and philosophy;
- writing across the curriculum: approximately fifty pages of formal essays per semester.
Students at the College engage in four primary modes of education: Seminar, Tutorial, Lecture, and Language practicum.
Seminars are at the very heart of a Great Books curriculum. In seminars we read and discuss a variety of texts from literature, philosophy, theology, law, and history. Seminars present the opportunity to develop the skills of the careful reading of texts, the attentive listening to other students’ opinions and arguments, and the clear expression of one’s own ideas in both writing and speaking. Classes are organized to encourage active participation.
Tutorials are guided investigations in the fields of Geometry and Mathematics, Logic, Natural Science, and Music. These courses are designed to complement the readings and discussions of the seminar. The tutorials give students opportunities to learn from observation and analysis as well as from reasoned discourse. The tutorials and seminars work together to help students realize the integrated nature of human understanding.
Lectures offer students articulated and systematic understanding of particular topics, presented by a teacher with extensive background in the subject. Lecture courses at the College focus on theology and philosophy. Lecture courses also complement and assist the questions posed in the seminars and tutorials. They do not offer students the "final word" on a topic; rather they are invitations to deeper inquiry and discussion.
Language courses give students the opportunity to learn how to read another language, translate it into modern English, and to compare its grammar and syntax with English. At the College, all students are expected to display a proficiency in the Latin language at the equivalent of four semesters of university-level study. Students who meet or achieve this degree of proficiency prior to the completion of the first two years of study will have the opportunity to learn Greek or a modern European language—French, Spanish, German, or Italian. All students will have a language course for each semester that they attend the College of St. Anthony of Padua.
Overview of the Four-Year Plan of Studies
|
Year |
First |
Second |
Third |
Fourth |
|
Seminar |
Greek and Roman Thought (12 units) |
Medieval Synthesis (12 units) |
Modern Thought (12 units) |
Senior Seminar (12 units) |
|
Tutorial |
Mathematics (6 units) |
Logic (6 units) |
Natural Science (6 units) |
Music (6 units) |
|
Lecture |
Bible (6 units) |
Dogmatic Theology (6 units) |
Metaphysics (6 units) |
Ethics (6 units) |
|
Language |
Latin or Greek (8 units) |
Latin, Greek, or Modern (8 units) |
Latin, Greek, or Modern (8 units) |
Latin, Greek, or Modern (8 units) |
A Typical Weekly Schedule:
|
M |
T |
W |
T |
F |
|
|
8:00-8:45 |
Mass |
Mass |
Mass |
Mass |
Mass |
|
9:00-10:30 |
Seminar |
Seminar |
Seminar |
Seminar |
Adult Learning |
|
11:00-12:00 |
Language |
Language |
Language |
Language |
|
|
12:00-1:00 |
Lunch |
Lunch |
Lunch |
Convivium Collegii |
Lunch |
|
1:00-2:00 |
Tutorial |
Tutorial |
Tutorial |
Adult Learning |
|
|
2:30-3:30 |
Lecture |
Lecture |
Lecture |
||
|
Evening |
Adult Learning |
Adult Learning |
Adult Learning |
Adult Learning |
Adult Learning |