History and Politics

The Department of History and Politics believes that historical thinking is an essential feature of faithful living. In our history classes, we aim to help cultivate in students the skills, knowledge, and virtues necessary for thinking historically. To think historically is to read all dimensions of the creation with a keen and subtle awareness of how they were shaped by processes rooted in the remote and the recent past. It also involves understanding past events, ideas, institutions, and civilizations within their thick and varied contexts. The department offers both a major and minor in history, and a concentration in art history, to achieve these goals.We also believe in the importance of civic thinking for a vibrant society. Our political science classes develop civic thinking by providing students with the theories, analytical skills, empirical methods, and research opportunities to understand the patterns of conflict and cooperation that characterize relations within and between states and peoples. The department offers a major and minor in political science to achieve these goals.