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The Seminar in Values
Inquiry is designed to bring together students from multiple majors to
share their perspectives on a selected topic in a way that illuminates
and critically examines traditions of thought, makes cross-disciplinary
connections, and, by both the preceding processes, facilitates integration
of their liberal arts education.
Focusing on one topic, participants in this seminar read texts from different
traditions. Students are invited to enter into conversation with these
texts as they learn to critically examine their own intellectual, moral,
aesthetic and spiritual values and come to understand, analyze, and evaluate
specific arguments for their claim to truth in order to develop well grounded
positions.
The ultimate objective of the seminar is for the students to become independent
thinkers capable of extending and critically evaluating their personal
values and opinions. Related goals include: (1) to encourage students
to bring material from other courses to bear on the topic of the seminar;
(2) to become familiar with the contributions of intellectual figures
and ideas to modern institutions and culture; (3) to recognize the differences
between particular values and truth claims; (4) to study the development
of systems of thinking, moral preferences, and ideological judgments,
and their impact on contemporary debates; and (5) to be able to present
a value-centered argument of their own with clarity and rigor, both orally
and in writing.
The seminar instructors emphasize these goals by encouraging dialogue
among the students, and by providing explanations and analyses when these
tasks cannot be done by the students themselves.
Open to juniors and seniors, this seminar is a graduation requirement
for all students at St. Mary's College of Maryland (with the exception
of students who are majors in Philosophy or in Religious Studies or who
are in the Nitze Scholars program).
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