Join Magdalen for Three Special Events
October 27 – 29, 2023

Our culture is suffering from worsening blindness to some of the most natural goods. Consider the profound confusion concerning the purpose of thought and speech in both private and public spaces, our obsession with amusement which has led to a disordered relationship to leisure and its role in human flourishing, and our irreverence toward the integrity of the human body. The forgetfulness of such matters also dulls the call of the Gospel for contemporary man. The gravity of this crisis is only sharpened when we acknowledge that it has deep cultural and intellectual roots and so resists an easy solution, but our situation is not without hope.

Join us as we reflect on how a liberal arts education can help to return us to a renewed awareness of and appreciation for created reality as it is given and as it is redeemed. The study of the great tradition involves a risk, the drama of reacquaintance with that which is most fundamental. In this case, might the adventure of such an education be truer to the experience of reality than we can find in a culture of banality?

In this colloquium we will especially consider how each of the liberal disciplines — theology, philosophy, literature, history — and the conversations among the authors these are each concerned with, can rejuvenate our sense for the nature of things in a timely way. Beyond moral instruction, what resources does such study offer for a reorientation of mind that can enable a holistic life that is genuinely Catholic and therefore genuinely human?

In addition to aiding the reflection of colleges and seminaries on the task of education, our hope is that a renewed encounter with the liberal arts can likewise refresh clergy in their liturgical and pastoral service of parishioners, religious and catechists in their discernment of how best to address the questions and intellectual needs of their parishioners, and secondary school principals and teachers in their purpose of serving the intellectual and spiritual development of their students.

Schedule

10:00 AM – Address by Dr. Bainard Cowan, Cowan Chair in Literature at the University of Dallas
10:30 AM – Address by Dr. Mary Mumbach, Professor of Literature at Magdalen College
10:50 AM – Questions & Conversation
11:30 AM – Votive Mass of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus followed by Confessions
12:30 PM – Lunch
1:30 PM – Address by Dr. Gregory Marks, Professor at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College
2:00 PM – Address by Dr. Erik van Versendaal, Dean of Academics at Magdalen College
2:20 PM – Question & Conversation
2:45 PM – Colloquium Concludes

Prospective students and their families will also have the opportunity to meet with our President, Dr. Ryan Messmore, members of the faculty, and members of the admissions team. In addition to program presentations, we will answer questions about applications and financial aid information.

Saturday Schedule

11:00 AM – 5:00 PM Welcome Weekend Activities
1:00 PM – Lunch
6:00 PM – Dinner
7:30 PM – 10:00 PM – Evening Entertainment & Swing Dance with a Live Jazz Band

Sunday Schedule

11:00 AM – Holy Mass & Renewal of Consecration of Magdalen College to the Blessed Trinity
12:00 PM – Brunch