Southwestern students grow in ways that reflect the rich diversity of God’s created order. But students are nourished by a common grounding that provides a shared context for growth in the Christian liberal arts tradition. As they grow in faith, students become rooted in the canon of the Old and New Testaments and in theological understanding. As they grow in skill, students cultivate their ability to write cogently, to reason mathematically, and to be fit stewards of their bodies. As they grow in knowledge, students increase their ability to grasp world history, to read and analyze discerningly from a Christian perspective, and to distinguish truths and values as they think through issues of eternal significance.

Recognizing the breadth of their heritage, students explore a variety of the branches of human knowledge and inquiry. Such exploration necessarily involves choice. In choosing courses, students will encounter the modes of inquiry and ways of thinking of some disciplines and not others. But the array of options within the general education program ensures that in reaching out to a wide variety of specific branches, each student will grasp something of the rich diversity of human learning as an organic whole. By becoming familiar with the vocabularies and types of questions asked in several disciplines, students equip themselves to be members of an increasingly global and diverse intellectual community.

As they grow deeper in the common ground they share with other members of the community, Southwestern students also master the methods and knowledge of their chosen majors. But a Christian liberal arts education is more than an intellectual exercise; students must incarnate their emerging maturity in competent and compassionate action. Living out what one has learned not only embodies the liberal arts tradition, which has always sought to produce informed and capable citizens, but also the Christian tradition, in which faith is demonstrated through works.

Reflecting the rich diversity of creation, such learning may take many different forms. It may emerge from and be demonstrated within the student’s major field of study, or within academic work outside the major. Students demonstrate the capability not just to know but to do, not just to study but to perform, not just to speak clearly but to communicate cross-culturally, not just to recognize right but to enact justice. A student completing general education and a major field of study leaves Southwestern ready to live out the good news of Christ and the empowerment of education. However difficult it may be to acquire, a Christian education exists to be given away, for free, in a lifetime of competent, compassionate service to God and to others

General Education    Purpose    Associate of Arts Objectives    Check Sheets