The Foundations Sequence is designed to introduce students to the intellectual life and to provide a foundation for success in their academic life. It does this by giving first-year students a common learning experience. Students spend two semesters engaging a common set of significant texts, discussing them and writing essays. In this work, they are guided by faculty who bring wide intellectual interests and personal engagement to the process. By examining texts from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, students are drawn into the liberal arts tradition which is central to Siena’s identity. The sequence aims to help students become more accomplished readers, writers and speakers.
The meaning of responsibility serves as the overall theme. The Sequence explores perennial questions concerning nature, society, the human person, religious and secular worldviews, and the American experience.
Students are in small classes that meet with a single professor for the entire year. A common set of readings for all students encourages discussions that extend beyond the classroom. These readings, both classic and contemporary, are drawn from various disciplines.
As a foundational course, the sequence emphasizes those abilities crucial to success in academic life: careful reading, note-taking, constructive discussion, research skills, and writing. In order to reinforce the notion that "education" in the widest sense occurs as much outside of the classroom as within, field trips to various cultural and artistic sites are part of the program.
Goals and objectives of the Foundations Sequence
The overall goals of the Foundations Sequence are to enable students
- To develop a responsible and reflective worldview that recognizes the benefits of diversity, serving others and sustaining our natural and social worlds.
- To apply critical thinking and moral reasoning skills.
- To improve oral and written communication skills that promote personal, academic, and professional success.
- To demonstrate a level of information literacy skill that meets the standards set forth by the Foundations Information Literacy Plan.
- To appreciate the life and values of Francis and Clare of Assisi.
What does the Foundations Sequence provide for first-year students?
- The Foundations Sequence helps the students to explore the meaning of responsibility in the world today.
- The Sequence introduces students to important material from a variety of disciplines that addresses central questions about human life.
- The Sequence examines a common set of readings in each unit of the course, creating a shared intellectual experience, and allowing any first-year student to discuss class materials with every other member of the first-year class. Students remain together as a class for both semesters, which promotes the formation of a learning community.
- Students also remain with the same instructor for both semesters. This benefits the students both academically and personally, since they can turn to their Foundations instructor for advice and assistance regarding issues that arise during the important transition from high school to college.
- The Sequence emphasizes a variety of methods of inquiry and tools of research.
- The Sequence is writing intensive.
- The Sequence includes a required field trip to a museum or other important cultural site, and promotes attendance at on-campus lectures and artistic events.
Accessing the 2007 Clare Lecture by Fr. Mullen
Summer Reading Letter for 2010
