Foundation Course and Capstone SeminarFoundation Course and Capstone Seminar

The Mount Aloysius College Foundation Course and Capstone Seminar provide Mount Aloysius College students with the opportunities to experience interdisciplinary instruction and to explore and reflect upon the implicit and explicit values of self and the contemporary world.

Our Cultural Literacy: A Seminar in Learning, Service, and the Mercy Tradition (CLS) is designed for all incoming freshmen. It is a required course for all students with freshmen status. A student who has:

a. completed fewer than twenty-four (24) college credits prior to enrollment at Mount Aloysius College must take CLS 101.

b. completed between twenty-four (24) and thirty (30) college credits at a regionally-accredited institution of higher education may choose to take CLS 101.

c. earned more than thirty (30) college credits may not take CLS 101.

d. transferred from another regionally-accredited college and wishes to transfer a first-year experience course to Mount Aloysius College, must provide a detailed course description or syllabus, and the course must be comparable to the FYE 101 offered at Mount Aloysius College.

e. failed CLS 101, must repeat CLS 101 during the next semester.

The current theme of this seminar is "The Good Society." It is a course designed to integrate freshmen into our community of thinkers and learners and to provide Mount Aloysius students with a common academic experience. Within a highly interactive learning environment, the course challenges students to examine their convictions and to open themselves to the convictions of their peers. The interdisciplinary approach offers a broad array of readings and includes six convocations, activities that may feature nationally recognized speakers, visiting major cities of national interest, as well as participating in campus-wide activities.

The Capstone Seminar is required for all students seeking a baccalaureate degree and provides the opportunity for students to demonstrate their abilities to integrate and synthesize scientific, behavioral, social, historical, cultural, ethical and moral concepts in service of humankind. Students are asked to draw from the whole of their college experience, core courses, major courses, extracurricular activities and campus programming, in answering assigned questions reflecting the role of an educated citizen in contemporary American society.

Together the Mount Aloysius College Foundation and the Capstone Seminar will foster the continuous exercise of students' critical thinking over the years of their connection with Mount Aloysius College and throughout their lives.