General Overview
While traditional in content, setting, and instructional style, a Cistercian education strives to be more than “classical.” In a few words, Cistercian education tries to be “intentionally thoughtful” about the ways it seeks to attend first and foremost to the needs of the student. The School intends to impart more than just content or experience. It hopes to provide a structure for a young man’s personal growth and a path to greater self-knowledge.
There are few periods within the Cistercian experience that call for more personal growth than senior year. The senior year is already in many ways distinct from other years because it encapsulates all of the imbued hopes and expectations of the prior years while at the same time it reaches forward and connects with the goals and growth that lie ahead. It is a time when students explore their past, present, and future – each facet of life offering avenues of insight into the others. It is a time of anticipation and natural pressure (imposed both externally and internally) coupled with elevated coursework and (hopefully) with elevated maturity and responsibility. It is a time that calls for greater reflection and conversation, for deeper friendships between classmates but also with teachers and Form Master. It is a time for navigating inevitable changes in friend and familial relationships as students forge their own paths.
It is appropriate then that seniors leave behind the elective system of prior years and enter the more serious and demanding realm of Honors Senior Seminars. Each student will choose an Honors Senior Seminar (three periods per week instead of the two for electives) with the intention of exploring that general area of study for the full academic year. These courses are intended as a substantial intellectual experience. While each course is intended as a year-long academic arc, each semester will have its own character (see below) and will be graded separately.
- Honors Senior Seminar I (fall semester): While respecting necessary differences in content, style, and assessment for various academic disciplines (and the interests and abilities of seminar directors), all courses will encourage habits of inquiry, reflection, and discussion to try to answer some of the “eternal questions” as expressed in the context of that area of study.
- Honors Senior Seminar II (spring semester): While again respecting necessary differences in content, style, and assessment for various academic disciplines (and the interests and abilities of particular directors), these courses will move from reflection and conversation towards practice, culminating in an academic project/presentation sparked by individual student interest and guided by the elective seminar director.
Senior Honors Seminar Course Descriptions
Below are the tentative descriptions and faculty assignments for the Honors Senior Seminar courses that have been offered between 2016 and 2020. All courses may vary from these initial descriptions in terms of both content and style, depending on the interests of the students. The broad strokes below are intended to act as an umbrella for exploration as students decide which course they should take. The passions and interests of the students, under the guidance of the directors, may affect both the arc of a course and a student’s eventual choice of project. Since all projects are designed to potentially meet a wide variety of interests, students should still be able to find an appropriate course within which to pursue a field of interest. Students are expected to engage in dialogue with multiple seminar directors before registering, to explore the ways an area of personal interest might be more fully developed within a given seminar.