Through the Junior Project students have the opportunity to spend the greater part of one academic year reading the works of a single author of their choosing from within their major discipline. Juniors also consider key critical works about these authors and their writings. Near the end of the spring semester, each junior joins three members of the faculty in a thirty-minute conversation about the works of his or her chosen author.
During their final year at the college, seniors have the opportunity to write a thesis and introduce the fruit of their study to their peers and members of the faculty through a sustained presentation and discussion of their work. This opportunity is open to students who wish to graduate with honors as well as to students who have not participated in the Honors Program.
Below is list of sample theses from recent years:
| Senior Thesis | Source Text |
|---|---|
| Principaliter Cordis: Personhood and the Primacy of the Heart in Aquinas’ De Motu Cordis | De Motu Cordis, Aquinas |
| Words, Words, Words: A Study of the Power of Language in Shakespeare’s Othello | Othello, Shakespeare |
| The Splendor of Beauty: Is Art Essential to Human Life? | Art and Scholasticism, Maritain |
| There Are More Dead Than Living Now | Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt |
| Love Before Man, Love Within Man, Love Above Man: An Exploration of the Relationships Between Creation, Man, and Christ | In The Beginning, Ratzinger |
| The Antigone Question: A Study of Man’s Response to Unjust Law | Treatise on Law, Aquinas |
| Freewill and Political Act: An Examination of the Machiavellian Concept of Freewill as treated in The Prince and its Contribution to the Understanding of Freewill as a Foundation of Political Action | The Prince, Machiavelli |
| The Confessions of Stephen Dedalus: Examining the Modern Man Through the Augustinian Psyche | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce |
| Antigone: An Unlikely Heroine: A Model of Heroism within the World of Tragedy | Antigone, Sophocles |
| Neither a God nor a Beast: Man’s Essential Relation to the Polis | Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle |
| Truth Within the Absurd: Discovering the Christian Component in Albert Camus’ Thought | The Rebel, Camus |
| The Aethereal Dance: An Exploration of the Role of Wonder in the Life of Man | The Philosophical Act, Pieper |
| Flight into Darkness: Stephen Daedalus’ Search for Meaning in the Modern World | A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce |
| History and Transcendence: A Study of Historical Principles | What Is History? Voegelin |
| A Suffering of the Mind | Long Day’s Journey into Night, O’Neill |
| Cause for Hope: A Study of the Nature of Suffering in Shakespeare’s King Lear | King Lear, Shakespeare |
| A Paradox: Veiled Woman in the World | The Eternal Woman, Von le Fort |
| Am I My Brother’s Keeper: An Examination of Man’s Responsibility for Others as Portrayed in Dostoevsky’s Novel The Brothers Karamazov | The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky |
| Staring into the Face of Silence | The Rebel, Camus |
| Sick with Love: How Human Fulfillment Comes to Fruition through a Life of Gift | On Loving God, Bernard of Clairvaux |
| The Nature of Beauty: An Explanation of Beauty as Both an Objective and Subjective Reality | The Arts of the Beautiful, Gilson |
| The Role of Repetition in the Virtuous Life and Man’s Happiness | Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle |
| Why Democracies Fail | Democracy in America, Tocqueville |
| De Definitione Legis Thomistica Mysterioque Ecclesiae: An Interpretation of the Thomistic Definition of Law and Treatment of its Ultimate Theoretical Adequacy | Treatise on Law, Aquinas |
| Heroic Virtues within Beowulf: The Harmony of Pagan Honour and Christian Virtue | Beowulf |
| The Ethics of Free-Market Economics and Capitalism in Society Today | Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII |
| Brilliant Achilles: What Is Achilles’ True End? | The Iliad, Homer |
Seniors who elect not to write a thesis will complete a Senior Portfolio. In this project, the student meets with his or her major tutor to develop and articulate a substantial, perennial question from within the student’s major discipline and to select a primary text and supporting texts that the student will consult in formulating a response (or responses) to this question. These then become the basis for an extended consideration of a perennial question that finds its ultimate form in a dialogic journal.
