Celebration Highlights Success of SLU’s University Core

03/30/2023

Nearly one full year into the launch of Saint Louis University’s new Core curriculum, President Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D., couldn’t help but marvel at how far things have come.

While interviewing for the president’s job, Pestello said he was surprised SLU lacked a core curriculum. That has changed. With the start of the fall semester, the University Core launched. On Wednesday afternoon, members of the University leadership, faculty, staff and SLU students gathered in the Sinquefield Stateroom to celebrate the launch. 

“When you’re in the midst of something, I think you don’t realize how important and consequential it is,” Pestello said. “I truly, firmly, sincerely believe that what we have done here is extraordinary.”

The Saint Louis University Core is an integrated intellectual experience completed by all baccalaureate students, regardless of major, program, college, school or campus. The celebration highlighted that this spring marks the end of the first full year of the new University Core and the fifth year since the University Undergraduate Core Committee (UUCC) began its work to develop the Core.

The process of creating the new Core was “very difficult,” but that was to be expected, Pestello said. The process involved a number of stakeholders creating something of great significance for the future of the University.

“Trying to get them to agree on something so important is not going to be easy,” he said. “There are going to be legitimate and passionate differences. The academy does not lack for passion.”

Pestello praised the UUCC for its work in crafting the Core. He singled out Core Director Ellen Crowell, Ph.D., for her work. 

“Everyone at this institution owes you a debt,” he said to Crowell. “You spent literally years of your life making this the top priority of your life. … Your work will have consequences for decades.”

Pestello thanked everyone who had a hand in creating the Core. 

“It makes a difference,” he said. “It goes to the heart of what we do, which is not simply transmitting knowledge to students — it’s also to impart wisdom. It’s to create the leaders of our country. It’s to create young people who will go out and make the world the way it ought to be. … This Core does that.”

Provost Mike Lewis, Ph.D., called the process of creating the Core an “incredible achievement.” Like Pestello, Lewis taught one of the Core’s Ignite seminars.

The seminars are designed to introduce students 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. 

“I taught a seminar on the challenges first-generation students face in the academy,” Lewis said. "I’m an organic chemist, so that’s definitely not my field, but the goal of the Ignite Seminar was ‘What ignites your passion?’ I spend a lot of my time thinking about first-generation students and how we can make the transition to college an easier experience for them. It was a topic that Ignites me every day, so it seemed like the right topic to think about with a group of students.”

Lewis said the seminar was a “wonderful experience.”

Crowell said the Ignite Seminars have been popular with students. She said she’s enjoyed being around campus and hearing students talking about their experiences and comparing their seminars. 

Crowell said while the first year is nearly complete, the work doesn’t stop. 

“The work of continuing to bring the Core to life and assess how it is going is something that we will continue to do forever,” she said. “This is the most rewarding work I have ever done, and it has been an honor to engage in this work at an institution like SLU and with my colleagues and students.”

The event also featured remarks from two professors and two students who have been involved in the core.

Both Natalie Parks, Ph.D., Social Work, and Ness Sandoval, Ph.D., Sociology and Anthropology, commented on how leading core classes changed them as teachers. Parks called teaching a Core class a “rewarding experience” and remarked that the students have had a positive impact on her life. 

Sandoval said one of his favorite parts of the Core is the emphasis on the University’s Mission. His Core class weaves his passion, cities, with the Mission. Outside of the Core, he said he’s now able to incorporate the Mission into his other non-core classes. 

The students, Nicholas Parafiniuk and Claire Nal, also shared stories about how much their Core classes have meant to them. Like the faculty speakers, Parafiniuk spoke about the importance of the Jesuit Mission and the role of the Core in making the Mission come alive for students. Nal compared the experience of learning in the Core to improvisational dance, sharing what students learn in the Core is much more about concepts or content; instead, the learn deeply about themselves. Both students said they appreciated the opportunities to learn outside their majors and to develop a new perspective on things.