Angelicum Great Books Program

(Left to right: His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI; Patrick S.J. Carmack, J.D., Angelicum GBP President; Prof. Piotr Jaroszyński, Chair of Department of the Phil. of Culture, AGBP moderator, Pope John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland; James S. Taylor, Ph.D., AGBP Online Moderator; Stephen F. Bertucci, Dir. of AGBP Online Classes; Prof. Peter A. Redpath, Chairman of the Angelicum GBP) 

“I exhort you to walk the roads of the digital continent animated by the courage of the Holy Spirit.”
Pope Benedict XVI Pope Asks Catholics to Give a Soul to the Internet  VATICAN CITY, April 25, Anno Domini 2010  

Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., S.T.D Chancellor

Welcome to the Ignatius-Angelicum LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM! 

This Angelicum Great Books Program is the beginning part of the LSP (click on the green LSP logo above for more information).  To begin the LSP simply enroll in the Angelicum Great Books Program – the first part of the LSP, described below.  FAQ about LSP.       LSP Student Options to Bachelor’s Degrees.

The Angelicum Great Books Program, which is the first component of the Ignatius-Angelicum LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM, consists of eight semesters (four years) of online classes meeting 2 hour per week, September-May, discussing the reading from one of the great classics of Western civilization – Great Books – done that week.  The syllabus in the sidebar gives program details.

Students do the weekly Great Books reading and meet for a two-hour weekly discussion with two highly experienced moderators very familiar with the readings, and 8 to 22 students online, including some from various States and often from various countries. 1500-2000 word essays are required each semester. Students must pass an oral exam online at the end of each semester.

The classes are conducted in a conversational or Socratic format. Our method of teaching by conversationally discussing questions and answers in a spirit of mutual inquiry and discovery dates back to Socrates and is at the heart of the Great Books and classical traditions. It leads students to develop and practice the liberal arts of listening, speaking, reading and writing as well as the habits of reflective, critical thinking. In this environment students begin to develop their thoughts and insights with care and confidence and learn how to express those ideas in the naturally delightful and liberating experience of genuine learning. In this way students gain understanding of their own natures and the nature of the world in which we all live. This makes for a better, examined and thoughtful life, a point on which all the sages who wrote the great books agree. Visitors are welcome to attend the classes to experience them. We have some audio clips of the classes classes posted online.

There are two modes to enroll and be in the classes: either for high-school-level credit, or for college-level credit (which also includes high school credit). We refer to these two modes of participation and enrollment as the high-school-track and the college-track.  In addition to the study described above, college-track students must submit extensive weekly answers – mostly of the short essay-type – to the Great Books Study Guide questions which accompany each reading.

Two 1500-2000 word essays per semester are required of college track students. These are graded for content as well as for English language arts, including grammar, syntax, spelling, vocabulary and style. These essays together constitute ten percent (10%) of the semester grade.  Students must pass an oral exam online at the end of each semester.  The extensive weekly grading, the coordination with colleges, more involved assessment and so on, make the college-track tuition considerably more than the high-school-track.  Students in the classes are generally unaware which students are doing it on the high-school-track, and which on the college-track, as it makes no difference in the online classes where they come into contact.

Students must be at least 14 years of age (or 9^th grade) to enroll in the Angelicum Great Books Program, or in the Ignatius-Angelicum LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM (of which the Angelicum Great Books Progam is the first part). There is no upper age limit.  The magnificent quality of the books read and discussed –which Dr. Adler called the “backbone of a liberal education – invariably elevate the conversation and enlighten the intellects of participants. 

The specific readings selected are arranged chronologically beginning around Homer’s Illiad  about ancient Greece (1^st year), and continue through ancient Rome (2^nd year), the Middle Ages (3^rd year), and conclude in our time (Modern or 4^th year).  This is typical of Great Books programs at colleges and universities. 

We have been doing this since our founding in 2000 A.D.  We have had thousands of students, in over 40 countries, many of whom have graduated and attend numerous colleges and universities.  Our program was successfully reviewed by the American Council on Education (ACE) which recommended it for 48 hours of college level credit.

The American Council on Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT) has evaluated and recommended college credit for 8 courses (totaling 48 credit hours – 6 per semester) of our Great Books Program. The American Council on Education, the major coordinating body for all the nation’s higher education institutions, seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and to influence public policy through advocacy, research, and program initiatives.

For more than 30 years, colleges and universities have trusted ACE CREDIT to provide reliable course equivalency information to facilitate their decisions to award academic credit.

The Newman Guide for Choosing a Catholic College also recommended our program.  Their review may be read here. 

The Angelicum Great Books Program is a purely distance education program with only minimal technical support staff needed to assist its professors who moderate our weekly, online, live-audio (i.e., not recorded, no delayed “chat” rooms) classes from their homes or offices around the country. This dramatically reduces costs thus enabling more students to attend and complete these high school/college level Great Books courses who would otherwise not be able to do so.

The Angelicum Academy offers a complete, nursery-12th grade homeschool program. The nursery-12th grade home school program has no required online classes. The Angelicum Great Books Program is an entirely optional add-on to that program. However it does offer shorter classes (30 minutes to 1 hour) for grades 3-8, which are not Great Books readings, but are rather short readings (a few pages) to give the students some training in rhetoric, debate, logic, courtesy in argument, speaking and listening. We call these classes our Socratic classes, as they too are conducted in that mode.

Angelicum Great Books Program students do not need to be enrolled in the nursery-12 Angelicum Academy homeschool program, nor to have come from that program, nor to have had the 3-8^th grade Socratic classes.  The Angelicum Great Books Program is operated independently of these, though they were designed to dovetail.

Most AGBP students have not come from the Angelicum Academy – they come from many programs, from Catholic schools, and from homes not using any formal homeschool program.  Over the years some Catholic schools have adopted all or parts of our curriculum.  The Ignatius-Angelicum LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM is also available for use in Catholic schools, which potentially allows them to piggyback in onto their curricula for the college-credit feature.  Please contact us for details. Our copyrighted program may not be used without our permission and guidance.  We are happy to assist in that process.

The Ignatius-Angelicum LIBERAL STUDIES PROGRAM, in cooperation with various colleges and universities now offers students the opportunity to complete some or all of their higher education from home, beginning as early as age 14 (or 9^th grade) and concluding with bachelors’, masters’ degrees and even doctorates from home. An optional year or more on-campus near Sydney, Australia at Campion College Australia; at St. Bede’s Hall, Oxford, UK; Benedictine College, Atchison, Kansas USA; online at Catholic Distance University, and at other cooperating colleges and universities is also available. Visit uowc.org and banner tab “Programs” for details.

Many years ago – from the Middle Ages to modern times – the Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree signified completion of the secondary level of education (following the elementary or primary level) and so readiness to enter into the third level of formal education – the university, for specialization in one’s chosen field. With that background in mind, Dr. Mortimer J. Adler wrote:

“If I had any hope that in the foreseeable future, the educational system of this country could be so radically transformed that the basic liberal training would be adequately accomplished in the secondary [i.e., high] schools and that the Bachelor of Arts degree would then be awarded at the termination of such schooling, I would gladly recommend that the college be relieved of any further responsibility for training in the liberal arts… if we are going to have general human schooling in this country, it has to be accomplished in the first twelve years of compulsory schooling…it would be appropriate to award a bachelor of arts degree at the completion of such basic schooling. Doing so would return that degree to its original educational significance as certifying competence in the liberal arts, which are the arts or skills of learning in all fields of subject matter.”

Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker (University of Chicago) made much the same point about the importance of early education when he noted the effect of the lack thereof in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution in the United States in which too many children are not learning the skills and adopting the habits and values that other children acquire. One result is increasing inequality. For example, prior to 1950 college graduates earned about 40 percent more than high school graduates, on the average. Today they earn 80 percent more. Thus education prior to college admittance age (roughly age 18) is increasingly important in our society.

When is it too late to make up for deficient early education? Becker says studies show that by age 16 government job-training programs for 16-year-olds do not succeed because they cannot overcome the failure to learn skills in the first 16 years. Dr. Adler noted that the responsibilities and financial pressures of college costs, adulthood and marriage effectively end the availability of sufficient leisure time necessary for general, liberal educational opportunities for most college-age students, in favor narrow specialized, vocational education.

Can government schools solve the problem by providing education and skills that traditionally have been provided by parents? Becker, citing various studies, concludes there is no evidence that will work. What about replacing real mothers with professional day care personnel? Sweden tried this on a grand scale (a literal, Spartan-like nationalization of the family) at great social cost, but produced no evidence of positive effects on children. Early home education, completed at the secondary level with general liberal education in the humanities, offers the surest – now well-tested – solution to the current educational crisis. As schools in general do not offer such an education at the secondary level, home educators must find ways to provide this for their students.

In a 1970 appearance on the TV show Firing Line, hosted by William F. Buckley, Jr, Dr. Adler made the same point that liberal education, the backbone of which is study of the Great Books (not student-selected electives), should be completed by the end of secondary (high) school:

“I think the curriculum for liberal studies should be completely fixed. There should be no electives at all. I do not think the student is in any position to make choices about what he should study. I do not think his interests make any difference. They are all human beings; they are all going to become citizens; they are all going to have lots of free time. I think electives – the choice of specialization – should come after the liberal arts degree.  I think the liberal arts degree is given four years too late. I would take American schooling and cut it down , and make it European in this sense: six years of elementary schooling; six years of secondary (lycee, gymnasium – high school); the collegiate (i.e., the BA [Bachelor of Arts]) degree coming at the end of that [i.e., at the conclusion of secondary education - 12th grade in the US]…I might extend that by taking [into account] the differences in the population: I might have the very brightest twelve years [i.e., through 12th grade] ; for the next level thirteen years; and the last, fourteen years, but not more than fourteen.”

Taking Dr. Adler’s words and personal encouragement to heart, in 2000 AD we developed The Angelicum Great Books Program for students high school and college age and up. Much like the AP science courses for which high school students can earn college credits for completing courses of college level content and rigor, The Angelicum Great Books Program allows willing students to gain a broad, liberal (i.e. from liber or libertas – liberty, or freeing from ignorance) education in the humanities through the study of the great books while in high school or college, via distance education, for college credit.

“Reading the Great Books had done more for my mind than all the rest of the academic pursuits…it is the best education for the faculty as well as for the students; the use of original texts is an antidote for survey courses and fifth-rate textbooks; and it constitutes by itself, if properly conducted, the backbone of a liberal education.” – Dr. Mortimer J. Adler