|
A new program for first-year students designed to integrate more effectively academic, co-curricular and residential experiences, will debut next year at Holy Cross. Launching in September 2008 for all enrolling first-year students, the program is a dramatic expansion of the College’s highly successful First-Year Program (FYP), which has been an option for students since 1992.
Rooted in the tenets of Jesuit higher education, the new program is titled “Montserrat,” after the mountain in Spain, where, in 1522, St. Ignatius of Loyola laid aside the symbols of his old life and began a pilgrimage of exploration, self-discovery and commitment.
“Our new program for first-year students will not involve swords, or armor, or overnight vigils,” says Timothy Austin, vice president for academic aff airs and dean of the College. “But it will come at a time in the lives of these young women and men when they are asking potentially life-defining questions as they move from adolescence to young adulthood.”
The new curriculum will coordinate small, full-year seminar courses with co-curricular programs (such as on- and off-campus events, guest lectures, discussion groups and social activities). Seminars will be grouped around broad topics in five interdisciplinary “clusters”—and will engage students in both critical inquiry and consideration of ethical values. The five clusters are: The Divine; Global Society; The Natural World; The Self; and Core Human Questions.
Students in each cluster will live together in the same residence hall. Common social space will provide natural opportunities to interact with classmates who are exploring the same cluster theme in a different seminar setting.
The College librarians, chaplains and members of the Office of Student Affairs have also developed special programs expressly for the first-year students that will complement and enhance the cluster themes.
Nancy Andrews, associate professor of classics and former director of the College Honors Program, has been named the director of Montserrat.
Additional information on Montserrat may be found on the Admissions Web site: www.holycross.edu/admissions/
|
