The IKON Program is a unique combination of IKON courses and our method of Faith as Wisdom - Reason as Knowing - Practice as Living. The IKON Program cultivates faith and transforms student's lives and expectations.
St. John Henry Newman captures the essence of what we mean by IKON (Integral Knowing Originating in Newman):
“In a word, Religious Truth [Faith] is not only a portion, but a condition of general knowledge. To blot it out is nothing short… of unravelling the web of University Teaching….” University training [what we call Integral Knowing], is the education which gives men and women a clear conscious view of their own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It teaches them to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares them to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility. It shows them how to accommodate themselves to others, to know their state of mind, to bring other before their own, how to influence, how to come to an understanding with them, how to bear with them.”
Simone Weil depicts the fruits of Integral Knowing:
The intelligence can only be led by desire. For there to be desire, there must be pleasure and joy in the work. The intelligence only grows and bears fruit in Joy. The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running.
Integral Knowing is the foundation for IKON® interdisciplinary courses. Students will learn to critique, analyze and remember what it is to wonder and to believe. Through reading great works from a variety of cultures, practicing oration and writing through speeches, poetry and composition, and in discussing their work, students will begin to integrate knowing and believing.
This IKON® interdisciplinary course introduces students to the broad concept of logos in relation to language. Students will consider the development of language, especially Proto-Indo-European languages, through a brief introduction to philology. They will also explore the use of language in world literatures and sacred texts, including the Bible.
Complementing a standard approach to mathematics, this IKON® interdisciplinary course integrates math, history and music. Students discover the historical achievements of mathematics and its classical relation to music through principles of time, form, interval, and proportion, etc. The Muse and Mathematics will aid students in appropriating the beauty of mathematics.
This IKON® interdisciplinary course considers the impact of Christian culture in the world – beginning with themes from scripture and the Jewish tradition to the Church’s encounters with ancient cultures and societies and civilizations through to our globalized, modern age.
Along with critical thinking, students appreciate wonder and the ability to practice “wonderful thinking.” An IKON® interdisciplinary course that views the world as a whole in relation to particular experiences of love, loss, death, time, etc., students read works of philosophy, literature and religion that touch upon first principles in thinking and knowing, being and becoming.
With an IKON® interdisciplinary approach, students explore the harmony between human and natural sciences, the humanities, religious traditions and professions in their search for truth
This IKON® interdisciplinary course examines the dignity of work (study, art, business, economy, family and religion) through the ethos of holiness.
Building on IKON® interdisciplinary courses, this course engages students with substantial primary source readings, writing and seminar discussion, in the “great conversation” on the perennial questions of faith and education from the ancients to the post-moderns
An IKON® interdisciplinary course that appreciates the development of psychological and sociological traditions in relation to dimensions of divine and human love.
An IKON® interdisciplinary course that considers the Catholic-Christian moral and social tradition. Students evaluate how or if this tradition integrates into their political views on law, rights, equality, tolerance, etc.
Scholars have observed that religious traditions inspire beautiful art throughout the world. In this IKON® interdisciplinary course, Christian faith is explored in relation to the creation of beauty – from cathedrals to cures, St. Ephraim’s hymns to St. Theresa’s Interior Castle, the Pietà to gospel choirs in New Orleans.
This IKON® interdisciplinary seminar which draws upon primary source readings, writing and discussion, evaluates the contemporary distinction between being spiritual and/or religious.