The Saint Louis University Core begins with the Ignite Seminar (CORE 1000), in which students are introduced to what
makes teaching and learning at Saint Louis University distinctive and transformative.
In these small-group seminars, SLU faculty members invite students to join them in
exploring the ideas and questions that have sustained and continue to fuel their passion
and commitment as individuals and teachers. Each instructor’s distinct expression
of disciplinary or interdisciplinary inquiry provides the lens through which students
practice the Ignatian learning process—an integrative and personal approach to learning
rooted in context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation. Ignite Seminars,
therefore, model how individual scholarly commitments are necessarily forged in dialogue
with the complex personal and social worlds we inhabit.
These courses make visible for students the rich interplay of intellect and identity,
wonder and certainty, rigor and play that characterizes academic inquiry rooted in
the Ignatian ideal of care for the whole person (cura personalis). Ignite Seminar
leaders, in partnership with SLU Libraries, also guide students as they identify and
explore the subjects, questions, and scholarly pursuits that ignite their own sense
of wonder and urgency.
Every Billiken will take an Ignite Seminar during their first year at SLU. For most
students, that experience will take place during the first semester. Students in certain
majors will take a seminar that is specifically designed for their program. Other
students will choose from any of the CORE 1000 sections available.
This seminar will introduce you to concepts of financial literacy that will have a
bearing on your personal financial success while giving you an appreciation for the
impact your financial decisions have on your local and global community. While this
course will help prepare you for the important financial decisions you will make that
will shape your financial future, you will also gain an understanding of how these
decisions can improve both your own and your community's well-being.
We will look at mathematics using children’s books and graphic novels. We will then
use creative approaches to share the untold stories of mathematics, with almost no
math involved!
The goal of this course is to critically understand and evaluate humanity in a time
of chaos. Sociology of Pandemics will introduce students to the pandemics’ impact
on society, with a focus on COVID-19. Students will reflect on and contextualize the
time, place, and circumstances in which we currently find ourselves through a sociological
lens.
How can you “meet others where they are” and not “other” them? In his ministry and
teachings, Ignatius of Loyola said we should “meet others where they are,” and he
provided guidance on how to do that. Centuries later, Jesuit institutions are educating
students to become leaders who are “with and for others.” In the current context of
identity differences and divisions in the 21st century — how can you be sure you don’t
“other” in your interactions across different identities? This seminar will introduce
you to Ignatian principles for learning and connecting with others and communication
strategies for creating understanding across identity differences and divisions.
Social change is foundational to SLU's Catholic Jesuit mission. This course provides
students with the knowledge, skills and tools to become effective leaders for social
change, whether on campus as a student or in their community as a citizen.
Employers often point to a lack of critical thinking with new hires. Our students
come to SLU because our mission encourages them to be contributors to society. One
barrier may sometimes be the inability to think critically and articulate what exactly
one wants to contribute. This seminar aims to support each student in creating a road
map utilizing critical thinking. Since human language and the way we express our experiences
impact our lives, this course supports a student through a translation process or
making sense of one’s experiences. Students create precise statements of their understanding
of the self and the importance of reasons for belief and a desire to contribute. The
greatest reward is being able to articulate a plan for contributing to our community
in the service of others and using the self as a transformational tool in anti-oppression.
Fuel your fire and passion for physical therapy by looking at the profession through
the eyes of various stakeholders. We will reflect on our own personal and professional
goals and link them to professional core values and Jesuit tradition. This journey
will help you discover your distinct role as a physical therapy student and growing
professional. By the end of the class, you will possess the tools to keep your passion
for physical therapy burning.
Why are vampires so fascinating? Is it their immortality that haunts us? Or is it
because they are the supernatural creatures that most resemble us? Through folktales,
stories, novels, and films, this course will investigate the persistence of the vampire
phenomenon through centuries as it migrates from prehistory to the present day, from
Eastern Europe to the West and back again. We will compare the Slavic vampire with
its Western literary counterpart (Byron, Le Fanu, Stoker, et al.) and will watch classic
and modern film adaptations of vampire tales. The course provides a thorough introduction
to the folkloric study of the vampire and its subsequent literary and cinematic transformations
by presenting a broad range of critical approaches to its interpretation, such as
Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism and globalization studies.
You will be living in the future. You can passively accept whatever is to come or
think and plan so that you can do everything in your power to make the future as positive
as you can. As Yogi Berra, famous baseball player, philosopher and St. Louisan, said:
"The future ain't what it used to be." And it isn't yet what it will be. Why not
become aware of trends and future possibilities to do everything you can to make the
future the best it can be?
Enjoy reading? Ever wished you could select your own course texts? Then consider
mining for literary gold from a master list of Saint Louis University Award Winners.
The course will explore a pantheon of literary greats, the benefits of leisure reading,
and a host of guest speakers and experiences that share a common theme of love of
the written word.
The Constitution is often invoked with little understanding or insight. Learn about
the who, what, when, where and why of our nation’s founding document. Be a leader
and understand the Constitution for yourself.
Traditionally diversity efforts and research have focused on more visible characteristics
like race and sex. But organizations and scholars are increasingly focusing on less
visible characteristics of diversity, such as religion, neurodiversity, non-physical
disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community. In addition to being less visible,
many of these identities are stigmatized. This creates an incentive for these individuals
to conceal their identity, but this is not without costs. This Ignite Seminar will
focus on these concealable identities and how individuals and organizations manage
them. In addition to covering the current state of diversity, this seminar will also
discuss the history of diversity in organizations. For all students, it provides an
opportunity to better understand how to be for and with others.
Have you ever wondered why people do and say the things they do? Have you considered
how social justice is a set of behaviors? Students will learn the basic principles
that explain why people do and say what they do and how to encourage behaviors and
actions of social justice in themselves and others.
Students will learn to observe the component parts of how cities work and how people
function in them. They will learn how to combine observation with data-based research
to better understand the challenges and opportunities of cities. And they will draft
action plans to address those challenges and opportunities.
This course aims to equip students with the tools to improve their engagement with
the public policy-making process and better understand the work of elected officials.
This co-taught, 3-credit hour course explores the contours of human well-being, resilience
and identity through two complementary lenses: psychology and art. The course content
is integrated with Cura Personalis 1: Self In Community and will include experiential
opportunities with local members of the art world and various community service organizations.
Although we cannot promise that museum artifacts will literally come alive as they
did in “Night At the Museum,” we hope our interdisciplinary and personalist approach
to teaching will bring students’ learning to life throughout the three content areas
we plan to explore:
The intersection of psychology and art in the study of empathy
The study of human agency at the confluence of self-control and creative expression
A view of meaning-making as a form of story-telling and the construction of personal
narratives
This seminar will explore theories of time travel in historical, scientific, literary,
and philosophical texts. What would happen if we could speak to the past or see possible
versions of our future? What does it mean to have free will and travel in time? Engaging
with readings that range from Boethius to Einstein to Doctor Who, this course will
examine how time travel offers a unique space for academic speculation about history,
ethics, faith and science.
You’ve grown up using the internet, cell phones, tablets, and playing video games;
thus, it is safe to say we live in a digital world. So how, then, does this digital
world affect how we live? How does the digital world use algorithms to shape our ability
to communicate, live in society, and engage civically, professionally, and ethically?
Algorithmic Justice explores these questions, considering what it means to be digitally
and data literate and how AI interacts with our everyday lives and the lives of others.
We will examine, for instance, methods by which digital technologies democratize and
how it excludes and divides, controlling the very ways we live. Ultimately, we will
think about the roles of digital and data literacy in what it means to be human and
what we value in our lives.
This course offers paths for action in difficult times. We will study how Aimé Césaire,
a Black philosopher from Martinique, responded to racism and colonialism, as well
as how Hannah Arendt, a Jewish philosopher writing in the wake of her experience in
an internment camp, responded to anti-Semitism and totalitarianism. One key theme
in the writings of both Césaire and Arendt is the importance of thinking. The task
of this course is to think with these philosophers and thus to understand better our
options in the present. What actions can we take to preserve and defend life across
the planet? Which ideas can teach us how to orient our lives amidst a crisis? Philosophy
teaches that no matter the forces around us, we can understand the world that confines
and constrains ethical life.
“The Gods of the Others” concentrates on the role of the sacred in shaping the relationship
between individuals and communities in different historical periods and geographical
areas. Departing from an analysis of the impact of the institutional and cultural
legacy of Christianity on our understanding of non-Christian experiences, this class
introduces students to bottom-up approaches to the study of religion in the world.
Through the analysis of all kinds of religious materials, including images, objects,
and performances, as well as Hollywood feature films, and Japanese manga and anime,
students will explore the ways in which different communities across the globe, through
beliefs and practices concerning the sacred, articulate and institutionalize individual
and collective attitudes towards the environment, political and economic hierarchies,
morals, gender dynamics, sexuality, and violence.
In addition to familiarizing students with specific cultural realities and analytical
skills, this course will help them develop the reflective approach whereby the study
of unfamiliar experiences of the sacred becomes fundamental in the reassessment and
reconceptualization of familiar ones. As famously remarked by Zhuangzi, a Chinese
thinker of the Warring States period, “Without the other, there is no self.”
We all constantly tell and take in stories about the world. In this course, we’ll
reflect on our own stories and how the experiences we have had shape our relationship
to a range of social justice issues, including feminism, anti-racism, and LGBTQIA+
liberation. We will also explore the stories that are told about these movements in
media ranging from music to medical journals, textbooks to TikTok. How can the stories
we tell — and the ways that we tell them — contribute to positive social change?
We all have a story to tell. Stories shape us, our curiosities, and our commitments
to one another. Because stories do not exist in a vacuum, we must make efforts to
learn the contexts in which our stories began. Students gain an understanding of stories
as innate to the human experience, as well as how stories might serve as sources of
individual and collective healing. This class introduces the humanities and its practical
applications that build bridges between the university classroom and our communities,
giving students a deeper context for who they are in relationship to others and how
we carry home/community with us, even when we are no longer physically present.
Why do people write poetry? Why do people read it? What is poetry trying to do in
the world? If a poem focuses on politics, society, and history, does that mean it
isn’t engaging with personal issues? If a poem focuses on individual experience, does
that mean that it isn’t engaging with a larger world beyond the poem? This seminar
introduces everyone—even people who think that they don’t “get” poetry—to the idea
of a poem as an intricate machine. By learning how poems work and why they work, we
will explore poetry as a vehicle for complex thought, surprising beauty, and social
change.