F IDES L EARNING C OMMUNITY Trust, confidence, belief, faith Challenge and strengthen your most important beliefs McAnulty College of Liberal Arts

FIDES objectives By the end of the academic year, FIDES students will be able to:  Identify the main beliefs of the world religions, including Christianity.  Analyze and produce formal and informal arguments for beliefs (theirs and others’), distinguishing among beliefs based on reason, authority, revelation, or other foundations.  Describe the development of key religious and philosophical beliefs in the West.  Describe in concrete and sophisticated ways how personal and community experience leads to or shapes belief, and how belief in turn shapes communities

FIDES Courses/Faculty Fall 2015  UCOR 030C, Research and Information Skills, Prof. Theodore Bergfelt  UCOR 101C, Thinking and Writing Across the Curriculum, Dr.Justin Kishbaugh  UCOR 132C, Basic Philosophical Questions, Dr. Christopher Mountenay  UCOR 143C, Global and Cultural Perspectives, Dr. Damon McGraw Spring 2016  UCOR 151C, Philosophical Ethics, To be determined  UCOR 102C, Imaginative Literature and Critical Writing, Dr. Justin Kishbaugh (optional)

Course Descriptions

UCOR 030C Research and Information Skills  This course will provide the basic skills required to do college-level research.  These skills include: defining information needs, determining which resources are appropriate, conducting research effectively, and evaluating search results.  Students will learn about the wealth of information sources available through the Gumberg Library, whether in print or electronically.  Students will also learn about ethical issues regarding the use of information, including academic integrity, copyright, and citation.

UCOR 101C Thinking and Writing across the Curriculum This course is designed to help students develop their critical analysis as both a reader and writer. By the end of the semester students in this course will have gained the tools and resources necessary to:  Employ critical thinking in analysis of writing and in use of information in their own writing  Distinguish between critical thinking and uncritical acceptance of received information  Use the concepts of the rhetorical triangle in the analysis of writing  Understand the difference between an arguable claim and an unarguable claim  Go beyond rigid conventions of high-school writing (e.g. the five-paragraph essay, prohibition of first- person voice) and select a voice and structure appropriate for the audience and rhetorical occasion  Identify errors in standard written English that they make and how to correct those errors  Locate and use sources on the basic concepts of usage and mechanics  Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical importance of sentence-level issues  Integrate appropriate secondary materials into their arguments using paraphrase, summary, and direct quotation Use MLA documentation and differentiate between summary, paraphrase, and quotation. Define plagiarism, understand its significance in an academic community, and understand the consequences of plagiarizing

UCOR 132C Basic Philosophical Questions Is philosophy relevant to our lives? In this course the instructor and students will work together to show that philosophy does have relevance in our everyday lives. The course material itself will be geared towards some of the great questions that all have pondered at some point: “Is there a God?” “How do I know I’m not merely dreaming reality?” “Why are some things considered good and others evil?” A sampling of the great works of Western philosophy will aid students in forming their own answers to these eternal questions. The course will also help to hone students’ skills in writing and forming well thought out arguments. Thus, this course will equip the student to ask the great questions and to answer them clearly, both skills that will enrich their lives. The course reading list will include works by Plato, Descartes. Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, among others.

UCOR 143C Global and Cultural Perspectives This course is an introduction to world religions from a comparative theological perspective. It integrates the academic study of religion with interreligious dialogue. It surveys the histories, beliefs, practices, and contemporary forms of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, indigenous Religions, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Learning Objectives  Acquire the ability to study and understand world religions with academic rigor.  Articulate how a Catholic theology of religions affects our approach to world religions.  Explain the emergence of, the rationale for, and the practice of interreligious dialogue.  Know the major features – historical, doctrinal, and practical – of the main world religions  Become practiced in the art of interreligious dialogue, gaining knowledge of others and self.  Develop the intellectual virtues necessary to be part of an effective learning community.

UCOR Philosophical Ethics This course provides an introduction to some important ethical theories of past and present times.

UCOR 102C Imaginative Literature and Critical Writing UCOR 102, "Imaginative Literature and Critical Writing," takes the lessons of thesis- driven, well-supported academic writing taught in UCOR 101 "Thinking and Writing Across the Curriculum" and applies them to the analysis of literature.

FIDES Community Engaged Learning

For the fall 2015 semester, FIDES students will visit Sri Venkateswara Temple, the local Hindu temple in Pittsburgh. They will tour the site, observe religious activities there, and engage in inter- religious dialogue with members of the temple. This experience is primarily embedded in UCOR 143, but it is related to all three 3-credit courses. Our purpose is to provide students with a concrete experience of the civic issue of religious and ideological pluralism: the co-existence of persons with diverse and conflicting beliefs. Each of our 3-credit courses will focus on this issue from its respective disciplinary perspective: theologically, philosophically, and rhetorically. The skill of respectful dialogue—inter-religious dialogue in particular—will be developed to enable students to address this issue. Students will learn to dialogue with persons of significant religious and/or ideological difference, developing values such as humility, openness, empathy, and respect for human dignity. Students will come to understand the value of this skill as a means of challenging stereotypes and prejudices, defusing conflict and building community, increasing peace and understanding, as well as gaining new knowledge and making progress in the pursuit of truth. In the wake of this experience, students will write a “reflection essay” in which they will consider the meaning of their experiences in light of the course learning objectives.

FIDES Extra-Curricular Activities

FIDES (Proposed) Extra-curricular Activities ❏ Visit to Sri Venkateswara Hindu temple ❏ Movie Nights ❏ The Mission (Fall) ❏ The Matrix (Spring) ❏ Others activities may be added as the semester proceeds

McAnulty College of Liberal Arts F IDES L EARNING C OMMUNITY Trust, confidence, belief, faith