Practical Purposes

This website is designed primarily for faculty advisors and students.  Although Simpson College has frequently offered a rich and intriguing group of senior colloquium classes, there has never been any text with course descriptions available to students for pre-registration.  This website is meant to address this issue and so students and advisors will now be able to make informed decisions about which SRC might be the most beneficial and interesting to the particular student.

Students and advisors will find detailed course descriptions of all the SRC classes offered for the 2008-2009 academic year.

SRC:  Capstone in Critical Thinking and Cultural Analysis

A second, but not secondary, purpose of this website is to fully address the questions concerning the nature and goals of the SRC program.  Although the answers to these questions will inevitably evolve as our self-understanding as an institution evolves, transparent and substantive answers can be given to these questions.

SRC courses ought to offer content that clearly captures some inescapable and significant issues, themes, and questions confronting contemporary society.  The word "significant" means here: issues, themes, and questions that present students and faculty with value judgments that have to be made in order for the society to act.  Hence, the term "inescapable" means precisely that: value judgments that we are currently making and will make in the future that will determine the manner of our form of life.  Students and faculty should also consistently ask how the value judgments are to be formed, asked, and answered and then how these judgments are to be subjected to critique.

SRC courses are not necessarily interdisciplinary courses; that is, it is not necessarily the case that all SRC courses will go at a specific topic from several disciplinary perspectives.  Instead, students should be encouraged to use all the resources and skills they have acquired during their liberal arts education in order to address the topic(s).  The overall goals and methods of SRC classes are ultimately derived from the mission statement of the college and this amounts to (at least partially) addressing issues critically and from a broad perspective.  Hence, the "issues, themes, and questions" in SRC classes should never be discipline specific so as to preclude a broader liberal arts perspective.

Students and advisors should also know that many of us at Simpson are in the process of developing new courses that are formed out of the criteria in the above statement of goals and purposes.

If you have any questions or need clarification, please feel free to contact me at 515-961-1559 or john.pauley@simpson.edu.

John Pauley
Professor of Philosophy
Director of Cornerstone Studies and Senior Colloquium