The Online Curriculum of the College is designed to make the truths of Western learning available through the internet to the wider community of students and scholars unable to attend classes on the CSTM campus inFort Worth. As a repository of the most splendid insights and truths taken from the Catholic liberal arts tradition, the College sponsors the curriculum for the dual purpose of advancing knowledge and forming students as virtuous persons, citizens, and saints.
Students from all backgrounds are invited to participate in Online Curriculum which offers a fundamental engagement with the great ideas, texts, and authors of Western tradition. These studies are particularly useful for high-school juniors and seniors as an introduction to college learning, recent high-school graduates who are undecided about possible majors and degree plans, and students who want to study the humanities after entering vocational and professional training.
CSTM embraces unapologetically the view that true learning is best accomplished through the interaction of professors and students who, as senior and junior members of the College, constitute the academic fellowship and collaborate in the advancement of knowledge and the discovery of truth. The College judges that this is achieved through conversation with the great authors and texts from the whole of human history when this conversation is undertaken in the light of the fundamental disciplines of learning—theology, philosophy, and literature. Its purpose, accordingly, is inspired by the desire for truth rather than the acquiring a formal knowledge about the great works. While edifying, the College judges that in the absence of a systematic engagement with the issue of truth, the study of the great books as such runs the risk of reducing learning to text analysis and equating knowing truth with knowing the ideas of the text. Both the online and residence curricula of the College require students to engage the systematic issues of truth through a conversation with the great works.
Online students, accordingly, are required to complete course work in theology, literature, and philosophy to understand the distinctive modes or domains of knowledge, re-creating and re-considering the manner in which ancient authors undertook in their own works to clarify these distinctions.
All students must complete the core curriculum of twenty courses in order to earn the Associates of Arts degree. Degree-seeking students may submit equivalent course work from other institutions to satisfy CSTM requirements. Students may also participate in online course work as special or occasional students. All students participating in the Online Curriculum are encouraged to meet with the CSTM faculty and attend events at theFort Worthcampus at some point during their studies. Online students are specifically invited to participate in the College’s overseas programs in Oxford,Rome, and Greece.
Through consultation with the CSTM faculty, Online students will develop a degree plan which may consist in addition to courses directed offered by the College, course work from other institutions, directed studies, and special tutorials approved by the Dean.
In order to take advantage of the insights of a wider community of scholars, the College invites, from semester to semester, qualified academics to teach as adjunct instructors. Scholars interested in participating in the Online Curriculum should contact Dr. Ronald Muller at (248) 410-3575.