Core Curriculum Designation Proposal
Theological Understanding: Theological Explorations
Engaging the World: Common Good
Engaging the World: Community Engagement
TRS 143, “Catholic Social Teaching”
SMC Core Curriculum Course Proposal Form 2013
- Name of Proposer: Tom Poundstone
- Email address:
- Department/Program of Proposer: Theology & Religious Studies
- Name of Department/Program housing the course: Theology & Religious Studies
- Name(s) of Program Director/Department Chair: ZachFlanagin
- Course Acronym, Number and Title: TRS 143, “Catholic Social Teaching”
- Proposal is for All Sections of the course: _____
Proposal is for instructor’s section(s) (Pathways to Knowledge only): __X___
- Course Prerequisites (if any): TRS 097, “The Bible & Its Interpretation”
- Unit Value of Course: 1 course credit
- Mark with an X the Learning Goal for which the course is being proposed. (Please submit a separate proposal for each desired goal.)
Pathways to Knowledge (at most one)
Artistic Understanding – Artistic Analysis only: ____
Artistic Understanding – Creative Practice only: ____
Artistic Understanding – Both Artistic Analysis and Creative Practice: ____
Mathematical Understanding: ____
Scientific Understanding: ____
Social, Historical, Cultural Understanding: ____
Christian Foundations: ____
Theological Explorations: _X___
Engaging the World (as appropriate, generally zero to two)
American Diversity: ____
Common Good: _X___
Community Engagement: _X___
Global Perspectives: ____
Narrative
THEOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING:
In TRS 143, the subfield of theology under consideration is Catholic social teaching, the disciplined examination of social structures in light of the biblical prophets, the gospel, and magisterial teaching. According to Pope Benedict XVI in is encyclical Deus Caritas Est, the purpose of Catholic social teaching is “to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just. … [The Church] has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice … cannot prevail and prosper.” According to Pope John Paul II, its foundation “rests on the threefold cornerstones of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity.” These aspects, dimensions, and themes in Catholic social teaching will all be explored.
Students will be required to spend significant amounts of time reading both primary sources and secondary texts, which will be the focus of lectures and discussions in the class. These readings will reflect both the insider’s and outsider’s perspective, with the students being challenged to assess the strengths as well as the weaknesses, disagreements, and debates swirling around this teaching, with both advocacy and dissent coming from within and outside the church.
The class format is a mixture of lecture, questions, and discussion. Students are expected to be dialogue partners in the learning process, and they need to be prepared to raise questions in response to the reading, engage in respectful dialogue and debate with their classmates, and be prepared to respond to questions posed in class. Students are frequently called upon to summarize the content of an article or chapter. Thus, for this and many reasons careful reading of assigned materials is essential for success in this course.
Student learning is assessed through multiple means throughout the course. On a daily basis, students are required to submit focused written reflections on the reading. More important for assessment, two midterm examinations will be administered. The format of the exams will be a mixture of various types of questions: identification, short-answer, and especially essays, all designed to assess mastery of the material covered. The exams are comprehensive, incorporating both large concepts and themes and the small details which are integral to true comprehension and crucial for building and assessing theories.
Also a final paper is required in which the student is asked to trace the treatment of an issue through the history of Catholic social teaching and critically to apply this teaching to a contemporary situation involving a justice dimension. Students might assess the contributions of Catholic social thought in reference to questions such as worker justice, gender justice, a living wage, domestic poverty, international development, migration policy, ecological concerns, health care access, criminal justice, racial discrimination, educational policy, torture, the U.S. presidential campaigns or the relationship of religion to politics more generally.
COMMON GOOD:
Students that successfully complete TRS 143 will have met all three learning outcomes listed for the “common good” learning goal. Inherent in the very word “social” in the title “Catholic Social Teaching” is an analysis and critique of contemporary social arrangements and norms in light of Catholic social thought. The common good is one of the core themes of this teaching, and as the course description indicates, the class will explore the distinctive ways in which the documents strike a balance between two key sets of values: 1) the goods of individual dignity and liberty; and 2) concern for the community and fulfilling obligations to the common good. All students will be tasked with not only writing daily reflections on the readings which directly and indirectly discuss and debate the common good, but they will also be asked to write a research paper exploring a dimension of Catholic social thought.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:
Two of the learning goals for this class directly relate to the community engagement learning outcome, though all are pertinent:
6) Students will reflect on whether and how comprehension of the connections between academic reflection and social action are enhanced through direct service with marginalized communities.
7) Students will be able to interact appropriately, sensitively, and self-critically with people in the communities in which they work and to appreciate the formal and informal knowledge, wisdom, and skills that individuals in these communities possess.
In addition, two details in the syllabus address these learning outcomes, the first addressing the placement, the second outlining the integration paper:
Community Engagement Placement:
A carefully selected placement explicitly approved by the professor that offers sustained direct contact with the poor or socially marginalized on a weekly basis is essential to the course. The clients and staff at the placements will serve as teachers and conversation partners, providing valuable experiences and insights that will deepen and broaden students’ understanding of the assigned course texts and our in-class lectures and discussions. Students are required to undertake a 16-hour commitment in their placements (2-hour, weekly commitment undertaken during weeks 3-10 of the course) in addition to some potential group service projects affiliated with the ministries offered by local Catholic churches. NB: The clients and staff at your placements are conversation partners and should be treated with utmost care and respect. Your attendance at your placement, as at class, is integral to your successful completion of the course.
Integration Paper:
A four-page integration paper will ask students to reflect critically on course texts in light of their service placement experiences. Specific guiding questions will be distributed that directly ask students to identify elements of the Catholic social tradition at play in the lives of clients in their placements (e.g. relevant signs of the times, human rights violations, and social sins) and then to compare different responses to the injustices identified in terms of contrasting paradigms (e.g. biblical and secular conceptions of justice or libertarianism and communitarianism). Papers will be graded on the basis of the quality of the integrationof the texts with concrete service experiences; conceptual accuracy; evaluative perceptiveness; and writing quality.
Hence, it follows that all three of the “community engagement” learning outcomes will be met in this class. First, as an academic analysis of Catholic social teaching, the class prominently features an analysis of contemporary social arrangements and norms in light of Catholic social thought with the goal of hopefully offering constructive responses. As Pope Benedict XVI in is encyclical Deus Caritas Est, the purpose of Catholic social teaching is “to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just.” That two-fold goal is shared by this class, with the service component an integral to the very purpose of Catholic social teaching.
In class and through our readings, students will be learn to recognize, analyze, and understand the social reality, inequities, and injustices in contemporary society, including recognizing the relative privilege or marginalization of their own and other groups. In addition, students will study aspects of liberation theology and attempt to take up the challenge of liberation theology to see contemporary justice issues through the eyes of the most marginalized and ponder what it is to make a “preferential option for the poor.” Building upon those insights, we will attempt to serve those who are marginalized, further enhancing our appreciation of the insights and reality that Catholic social teaching addresses.
Second and third, students will be asked to reflect academically upon their service experience, linking their experience with the texts we are reading and our class discussions. This will be done throughout the semester in regularly scheduled write-ups and reports, and by a final summative paper which directly integrates their experiences with the course material.
The project will be mutually beneficial in that students will gain first hand tangible experience and the community partners will be served. Both the ongoing reflections and the final integration project will measure students’ abilities to apply academic methods, concepts, and theories while engaging with community. Throughout the semester, reflection prompts will ask students to examine course concepts in light of their community engagement. Each stage of the project enables the instructor to monitor and measure whether students are successfully applying the concepts to what they are encountering in their community projects, and thus assess whether they’re meeting this learning outcome.
SYLLABUS
Theology & Religious Studies 143, Spring 2015
Catholic SocialTeaching
Course Description:
This course will explore the tradition of Catholic social teaching in its theoretical and lived forms.While we study many of the official documents of the Catholic social tradition (papal, conciliar, and episcopal texts from Rerumnovarum in 1891 up to the present time), attention will be paid to the various contexts (ecclesiological, cultural, institutional, historical) in which the moral reasoning of these documents unfolds. We will also try to connect the magisterial documents to figures and movements that sprang from or embody the values of this body of thought. Throughout we will also be noting several operative principles and themes, among them being the common good, human rights, solidarity, peace, economic development, work, subsidiarity, and the preferential option for the poor. Emphasis will also be placed on understanding the distinctive ways in which the documents strike a balance between two key sets of values:
1) the goods of individual dignity and liberty; and
2) concern for the community and fulfilling obligations to the common good.
If approved as fulfilling the “community engagement” learning outcome, the course will also consider lived dimensions of the tradition through students’ required placements and case studies.
Learning Outcomes:
1. Students will become familiar with the core theological, ethical, and methodological principles and themes of Catholic social thought and be able to articulate them clearly. (The common good will be prominently featured as one of these themes.)
2. Students will be able to account for the key forces, movements, and events that have shaped the development of the Roman Catholic social tradition.
2. Students will understand the integral connection between the Catholic faith and social justice commitments.
3. Students will be able to assess and analyze contemporary social arrangements and norms in light of Catholic social thought and hopefully offer constructive responses.
4. Students will be able to identify and assess some of the strengths and weaknesses of Catholic social thought.
5. Students will attempt to take up the challenge of liberation theology to see contemporary justice issues through the eyes of the most marginalized and ponder what it is to make a “preferential option for the poor.”
7. Direct service with marginalized communities will facilitate students’ comprehension of the connections between academic reflection and social action.
6. Students will reflect on whether and how comprehension of the connections between academic reflection and social action are enhanced through direct service with marginalized communities.
7. Students will be able to interact appropriately, sensitively, and self-critically with people in the communities in which they work and to appreciate the formal and informal knowledge, wisdom, and skills that individuals in these communities possess.
8. Students will be able to recognize, analyze, and understand the social reality, inequities, and injustices in contemporary society, including recognizing the relative privilege or marginalization of their own and other groups.
The attainment of these outcomes will be assessed through daily write-ups in response to reading assignments, two midterm examinations, a final research paper, and a short-paper with focused reflections on the community service placement.
Accommodations:
Reasonable and appropriate accommodations which take into account the context of the course and its essential elements are extended through the office of Student Disability Services for individuals with qualifying disabilities. Students with disabilities are encouraged to contact the Student Disability Services Coordinator at (925) 631-4358 to set up a confidential appointment to discuss accommodation guidelines and available services. Additional information regarding the services available may be found on the Saint Mary’s website in the section on “Academic Advising & Achievement,” the first entry under the heading “Academics.”
Required Texts:
The course is still in design, but texts will probably be selected from among the following:
Harlan Beckley, Passion for Justice: Retrieving the Legacies of Walter Rauschenbusch, John A. Ryan, and Reinhold Niebuhr
Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good
Carles E. Curran, Catholic Social Teaching: 1891- Present
Daniel G. Groody, ed., The Option for the Poor in Christian Theology
Kenneth R. Himes, editor, Modern Catholic Social Teaching
John P. Hogan, Credible Signs of Christ Alive
David Hollenbach, The Common Good and Christian Ethics
Thomas Massaro, Living Justice, Catholic Social Teaching in Action.
David McCarthy, The Heart of Catholic Social Teaching: Its Origins and Contemporary Significance.
David J. O’Brien and Thomas A. Shannon, Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church
Maura A. Ryan, “Boundaries or Barriers? U.S. Immigration Policy and the Challenge of Solidarity,” pp. 210-230 in Maura A. Ryan and Todd D. Whitmore, eds.,The Challenge of Global Stewardship: Roman Catholic Responses
Jon Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation: Toward Political Holiness
Brian Stiltner, Religion and the Common Good: Catholic Contributions to Building Community in a Liberal Society
Todd D. Whitmore, “Practicing the Common Good: The Pedagogical Implications of Catholic Social Teaching,” Teaching Theology & Religion, Volume 3, Issue 1, pages 3–19, February 2000
The bulk of the reading will be in the form of chapters, essays, articles, and Church documents which will be distributed periodically throughout the semester in the form of an ever-expanding reader.
Class Format:
The class format will be a mixture of lecture, questions, and discussion. Students are expected to be dialogue partners in the learning process. Students should be prepared to raise questions in response to the reading, engage in respectful dialogue and debate with their classmates, and be prepared to respond to questions posed in class. Students will frequently be called upon to summarize the content of an article or chapter. Thus, for this and many reasons careful reading of assigned materials is essential for success in this course. Since there will not be nearly enough time in class to discuss all that we have read, students should be aware that they are responsible on tests and in papers for much more than what we discuss in class.
Minimum Preparation Time:
This class meets for 1.5 hours per session. The student handbook observes that a minimum of 2 hours of homework is expected for each hour of in-class time. As a reading-intensive class in the School of Liberal Arts, it might be a bit more. Thus a student aiming for an average grade should expect to work a minimum of three (3) hours outside class for each in-class session (i.e., a minimum of 6 hours of focused study outside of class per week, in addition to the 3 hours spent in class per week). Be sure to reserve at least that much study time.
Attendance:
Daily attendance and engaged class participation are necessary for learning in this class. Attendance will be determined in the first few minutes of class. If you arrive late, check with me after class to make sure I’ve marked you present for at least part of the class. If you miss class entirely, be sure to send me a note. If there was a handout, as there often is, I’ll either leave it for you in the box outside my office or bring a copy for you to the next class. If you don’t send me a note, I won’t bring a copy. It’s that simple. As for what you missed, check with your classmates.
Beginning with the fourth absence, one-third of a letter grade will be deducted from the student's final grade from the class, i.e., an “A-” will be lowered to a “B+,” a “B” to a “B-,” etc. An additional third will be taken off for the fifth absence. Any more than five absences -- for any reason -- will result in automatic failure for the semester regardless of academic performance on tests and papers. (These deductions are automatic and only taken after your grade for the semester is calculated.) If you need to miss this many classes for medical reasons, you should consult the college’s guidelines for medical withdrawal.