Founding and Great Books Curriculum
In 1976 a group of educators founded what their leader, the Rev. Joseph Fessio, S.J., called, "a completely integrated liberal arts program in the Jesuit tradition." Fessio, a theological conservative, founded the SII in reaction to curriculum changes at the university which he saw as a departure from the traditional Jesuit approach to education.
The four-year long sequence of studies in the liberal arts was designed to follow a method of seminars and lectures based on the students' reading of the Great Books of the Western World, in a roughly historical order. The reading list mostly resembled those at other undergraduate colleges offering Great Books programs such as St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at Thomas Aquinas College, in Santa Paula, California.
SII students would read and discuss the same works from the official reading list of Great Books authors chosen for their impact on the intellectual life of Western Civilization, regardless of the creed or philosophy of the authors. For instance, in their first semester, freshmen read works by Ancient Greek and Semitic pagans, including Homer, Aristophanes, Sappho, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. At the same time, the SII also drew upon and emphasized Roman Catholic contributions to the Western tradition, as represented by such Catholic authors as the early Church Fathers, St. Augustine, Boethius, St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Chaucer, Cervantes, as well as more recent Catholic thinkers like John Henry Newman, G. K. Chesterton, and the fathers of the Second Vatican Council.
Like Thomas Aquinas College, the SII espoused academic freedom by not limiting admissions to applicants of any religious or philosophical belief. Students tended to be Catholic, but some non-Catholics became students and faculty members.
Unlike some other institutions with Great Books curricula, the SII operates within a larger university and does not constitute an alternative to the obligatory major that USF students declare before graduation. The original program was strong in the humanities (languages, literature, composition (language), philosophy, theology) but had a weaker offering in mathematics and the natural sciences. Students who fulfilled the requirements of the SII were awarded a Certificate in the Liberal Arts, by which USF and the SII certified that the student had achieved USF's general education requirements toward an undergraduate degree.
Read more about this topic: St. Ignatius Institute
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