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Program Synopsis
Foundations Sequence Course Synopsis
2009-2010
Preface
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.
Because of the common reading list, other faculty members should be able to build on the material discussed in the foundations sequence. To make our colleagues aware of what topics are addressed, we have prepared this synopsis.
Course Description
The Foundations Sequence is a two-semester, writing-intensive course taken sequentially by first year students. It is designed to provide a foundation for the academic and intellectual life. Faculty and students meet in small, interactive classes to explore classical and contemporary works together. Themes for the first semester are Nature, Society, and the Person, and for the second semester, Secular Worldviews, Religious Worldviews, and The American Experience. Students will usually remain with the same faculty member for both semesters. This is a course strictly for first-year students. If students fail one or both semesters, they will have to make up the credits with other core courses, not by re-taking the sequence. (College Catalog)
Classes in Foundations are structured to emphasize discussion of important issues from a variety of perspectives. To encourage out of class exchanges, there is a common set of readings for all students. 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, 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
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.
Required Readings, Unit Objectives, & Sample Issues/Discussions
Note: For required readings, (Book) indicates a book to be purchased, (Reader) indicates an article in the Foundations Reader, which is given to students at the first class, (Web) means the article is available on the Web. Faculty supplement the required readings of the common syllabus with other brief articles of their own choosing.
Writing Aids
- Style Manual: Diana Hacker, A Pocket Manual of Style, Fifth Edition (Book)
- Rhetoric Guide: Graff & Birkenstein, They Say / I Say (Book)
Summer Reading: Kahled Hosseini, The Kite Runner (Book)
Early in Fall semester: Parker Palmer. “The Community of Truth” (Reader)
Responsibility Theme: H. Richard Niebuhr, “The Meaning of Responsibility” (Reader)
Franciscan Tradition: Francis of Assisi, “Canticle of Brother Sun,” (Reader) “Letter to Rulers of the People” (translated version and paraphrased version in Reader), plus one additional text by or about Francis chosen by the instructor / Clare: Fr. Kevin Mullen’s 2007 Clare Center Lecture (Foundations website)
MLK:
- Martin Luther King, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (Reader) – generally used as a "transitional" text into the second semester and as a backdrop for the Martin Luther King Lecture, which Foundations students are required to attend.
- Charles Ogletree. “Conclusion” chapter from All Deliberate Speed (Reader) plus Brown v. Board of Education decision (Web)
Nature Unit
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Required Readings
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Objectives
The student will:
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Some Examples of Issues / Discussions Some Faculty May Include
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- Describe the different attitudes that people have towards the natural world and evaluate the consequences of holding these attitudes
- Identify the environmental issues facing the world today and articulate the connection between contemporary lifestyles and the ecological crisis
- Explain the relevance of the Franciscan Tradition to questions of environmental responsibility
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- What is our conception of and relation to nature? [e.g., mechanistic vs. organic views of nature; anthropocentric vs. egalitarian environmental ethics]
- How has our conception of nature changed over time?
- What are the metaphors used by humans to understand nature?
- Neo-Malthusian theory
- Ecology/human responsibility toward nature A. Smith’s “Invisible Hand” [e.g. the ramifications of consumerism vs. a return to more simplified living]
- Is nature treated as a “commons”? Individual freedom versus common good
- How can the Franciscan Tradition contribute to the debate on environmental responsibility? [e.g., respecting nature as a brother or sister and seeing that we need to serve not only other people, but the natural world]
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Society Unit
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Required Readings
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Objectives
The student will:
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Some Examples of Issues / Discussions Some Faculty May Include
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- Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Part 2 (Book)
- Freud, excerpts from Civilization and Its Discontents (Reader)
- Ritzer excerpts from The McDonaldization of Society (Bb) 1) 2) 3) 4)
- McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (Reader)
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- Compare various views on the nature of society
- Describe the impact that society has on individuals and that individuals have on society
- Analyze the existence and consequences of inequalities in society
- Examine the meaning of social responsibility
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- How are culture and nature related?
- Is social inequality “natural” or “artificial”?
- The “state of nature,” “social contract,” “general will”
- What are the marks of a good society?
- Impact of standardization, globalization on society
- Are humans naturally good or inherently aggressive?
- “Free market,” “laissez faire,” “homo economicus”
- Weber’s “bureaucratization” of society
- “Efficiency” as a social ideal
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Person Unit
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Required Readings
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Objectives
The student will:
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Some Examples of Issues / Discussions Some Faculty May Include
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- Plato, “The Crito” in The Trial and Death of Socrates (Book)
- Maslow, “A Theory of Human Motivation” (Reader)
- Integration text: Danticat, Krik? Krak! “Children of the Sea” plus three other stories selected by professor (Book)
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- Describe different views of what it means to be a person.
- Examine and further develop their sense of self.
- Recognize the complexity of any person’s identity
- Recognize and appreciate their responsibility to themselves, their community, and the world.
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- What defines humanity?
- Conscious/unconscious needs and the development of personality
- Socialization/independence
- What is individuality?
- Roles of language and stories in self-understanding
- Hierarchy of needs
- The Social Self
- Communal responsibility vs. individual conscience
- Socratic method
- Absolute vs. relative values
- Relation of imagination and art to self-understanding
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Religious Worldviews Unit
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Required Readings
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Objectives
The student will:
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Some Examples of Issues / Discussions Some Faculty May Include
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- Albanese, "The Elephant in the Dark" (Reader)
- Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor text: pp. 1-55 and 68-80 (Book)
- The Life of Meaning, chptrs 5, 6, 7 (Book)
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- Analyze and compare various religious worldviews.
- Appreciate the diversity of religious worldviews and develop respect for worldviews that are not their own.
- Understand what it means to be a responsible person and member of society according to various religious worldviews.
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- What is religion?
- Can freedom and religion be reconciled?
- Ethical dimensions of Buddhism and Christianity
- Problem of evil
- Religion as social and as individual
- Religion and narrative
- Religious responses to Enlightenment critiques
- Four Noble Truths and Eight-Fold path of Buddhism
- Compassion/Responsibility
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Secular Worldviews Unit
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Required Readings
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Objectives
The student will:
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Some Examples of Issues / Discussions Some Faculty May Include
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- Analyze and compare various secular worldviews.
- Appreciate the diversity of secular worldviews and develop respect for worldviews that are not their own.
- Understand what it means to be a responsible person and member of society according to various secular worldviews.
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- Intellectual antecedents of contemporary secularism
- Critique of religion
- Free inquiry, truth, democracy
- What is a worldview?
- What is the scientific method?
- Is science value-neutral? What is its relationship to ethics?
- When using a text that emphasizes evolution:
Natural Selection
- Darwinian Evolution as “ladder” or “bush”
- Bacteria as dominant life form
- Place of humans in evolution
- Are religion and science compatible?
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American Experience Unit
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Required Readings
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Objectives
The student will:
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Some Examples of Issues / Discussions Some Faculty May Include
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- Identify and examine factors that contribute to the structure of American society.
- Recognize and reflect upon diverse American identities and the forces that shape them.
- Explore the question of a common American identity.
- Understand the rights and responsibilities of an American citizen.
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- Immigration
- Slavery
- Genocide
- The 60s
- City versus Suburbs
- Memory/history
- Hyphenated citizens
- Economic justice: Does everyone in America have an equal opportunity for success?
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