Common Questions About Living Learning
What is Living Learning?
Students who first enrolled in Saint Joseph’s College in 1851 benefited from in- and out-of-class interactions with Jesuits and instructors. Cura Personalis, the Jesuit notion of caring for each student as an individual, led to students, Jesuits and instructors developing and sharing a community in which the foundations of academic life (study, reflection, discussion, debate) found synthesis with the foundations of student life (social development, life skills, relationship building and commitment to the larger community). Today, through Living Learning, an equivalent synthesis is available to the University’s resident students. Faculty, administrators and staff come together with resident students outside of the classroom—in the residence halls or off campus—to examine, discuss and reflect on issues of intellectual, cultural, personal and spiritual relevance.
How does Living Learning touch resident students’ lives?
Recognizing that students need and respond to different types and different levels of interaction with others, Living Learning offers students a variety of participatory options:
- General Living Learning Programs. These programs are hosted by faculty, administrators and/or staff either in the residence halls or off campus. General Living Learning programs address issues of academic, social, spiritual and physical importance, crossing curricular boundaries and introducing students to the importance of integrative thinking and integrative learning.
- Hawk Vision. The University’s movie channel, airing on channel 96 or 99, depending upon the residence hall, runs approximately ten recent and/or classic movies chosen by the Director of Living Learning, faculty and students. Hawk Vision movies at times are used to support in-class discussion or General Living Learning Programs.
- Academic Interest Housing Options. For academic year 2007-2008, the following options are offered:
Art (Upperclassmen);
Business (Freshmen; Upperclassmen);
English/Writing (Freshmen);Foreign Languages and Cultures (Freshmen);
Freshman Ignatian Residential Experience (Freshmen);
Freshman Learning Community (Freshmen);
Health, Fitness and Wellness (Upperclassmen);Intercultural Experience (Upperclassmen);
Political Science-Pre-Law/International Relations (Freshmen);
Science (Freshmen);Psychology (Freshmen);
Undecided Social Sciences (Freshmen).
Faculty in the cooperating departments for these options offer a variety of programs for students and accompany students on off-campus trips (such as to site visits to Manhattan businesses for the Business Hall).