Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts offers a liberal education for greatness. This may be a public greatness that human history will mark within its records or the quiet, hidden greatness that sustains families, societies, and the world, just beyond the vision of others. This greatness gives form to a life transformed, one in which students find true freedom, joy, and the wisdom that transcends our age.
Through its deep integration of liberal education and the Catholic faith within a joyful community, Magdalen College offers students the opportunity to pursue wisdom in a spirit of friendship, animated by a communion of faith, bringing the intellect and imagination to their full realization. Our community is unlike any other.
At Magdalen College we educate our students not only for the lives they will live immediately following graduation, but also for the lives they will live two decades later. When our graduates step into the leadership of public, private, and ecclesial institutions, or lead quietly in the private spheres of life, they will be taking up the reins that will shape and sustain society and the Church through the next generations.
It is for these high and heroic callings that we educate.
Magdalen College offers a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Liberal Studies with majors in Literature, Philosophy, History, and Theology. In addition to their major, students may choose to concentrate in the fine arts. The college also awards its Apostolic Catechetical Diploma to students who complete the six-semester sequence of theological studies with at least a grade of C or better in each course and who pledge to teach Catholic doctrine in communion with the Holy See.
All students complete a core set of courses in the classical liberal arts called the Program of Studies. The comprehensive, substantive nature of the curriculum was recently acknowledged by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. ACTA awarded Magdalen’s curriculum a perfect score for requiring courses in all selected subject areas across the broad sweep of arts and sciences. Magdalen was one of only seven colleges in the country to receive this distinction.
Our Program of Studies is grounded in four key commitments:
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For a visual overview of how our courses fit together, view our program-at-a-glance.
Areas of Study
Explore the content that Magdalen students study in Philosophy and Humanities, Theology, Writing Workshop, Latin and Greek, Math and Science, and the Nature of Man Seminar.
Music and Art
Through our unique “Arts of the Beautiful” Program, students can integrate the practices of music, visual art—including iconography—and drama with sustained reflections on aesthetics, all while experiencing these arts in the museums and concert halls of New England.
Majors
As a complement to our generous core of great books, students choose a classic disciplines in the junior and senior year, reading books from within that discipline and developing a vision of reality shaped by it.
Sequence of Readings
We combine the very best approaches to liberal education and reading the classic great books. Our students drink directly from the sources, engaging poets, philosophers, theologians, scientists, historians, playwrights, and artists in their own words and works.
Comprehensive Assessment Program
The Comprehensive Assessment Program (CAP) highlights the learning outcomes that constitute our program of studies. It demonstrates how our students grow in wisdom, develop faculties inherent within human nature, flourish within a communion animated by virtue, generosity, & civility, live as disciples ordered to purpose, and lead through service.
Junior Project and Senior Thesis
At the beginning of the junior year, when a major discipline has been chosen, each student selects a single author as the subject of an extended exploration of reading and then, as a senior, selects a classic book and related question that become the basis of a senior thesis or portfolio.
Honors
In the college’s Honors Program, students and faculty explore—in a seminar setting—classic texts and themes chosen by a senior tutor of the college, while also completing an Honors Thesis during their senior year.
Visiting Lecturers
As part of its Formal Hall dinner series, the college invites scholars, poets, priests, philosophers, artists, musicians, and cultural leaders to join the conversation that animates our collegiate culture, events that combine lively dialogue and good food.
Faculty
Our faculty joyfully devote themselves to the pursuit of wisdom through the classic books and the central disciplines, mentoring students who wish to join them in the exploration of the highest and most permanent things.
Library
The St. Augustine library holdings include 25,000 print volumes, 60 periodical titles, and a variety of digital resources, all managed by a professional librarian with extensive academic experience.
Academic Support
Magdalen provides various forms of academic support for students who may need additional assistance.
Academic Calendar and Catalog
This resource page provides a detailed view of our academic schedule and course offerings.
