The Core Texts Program emphasizes words from the past because we think they matter for the present. Four words in particular summarize our purpose: Quaestio, Disputatio, Fides, Ratio.

Inquiry (Quaestio)

Discussion (Disputatio)

Faith (Fides)

Reason (Ratio)

Inquiry, discussion, faith, and reason reveal what make us human. From its earliest inception, higher education pursued questions and answers that transmitted values from one generation to the next. Many contemporary college and university curriculums neglect this pursuit. Samford's Core Texts Program gives it primacy of place. We equip our students with an intellectual narrative that will help them navigate the modern world's complicated marketplace of ideas. Additionally, we connect that rich narrative to the Christian intellectual tradition so that students are better able to see faith and reason as interconnected parts of the human experience.

Our curriculum emphasizes the major works on which American higher education was founded. These are the ideas that continue to be debated with rich intellectual reward. We cherish the great writers and thinkers of the past, yet we also recognize that their wisdom must constantly be translated for a new generation.

For centuries reading great works of literature, history, philosophy, and theology served as an initiation into the life of a mature educated person. The mind and the soul were believed to share a relationship, and curriculums were designed to cultivate the moral reasoning skills required of civilized people. At Samford, we continue to value the transformative experience that comes from engaging significant ideas that shape our civilization and its values.

In the fall of 1997, Samford University introduced an entirely new Core Curriculum for its undergraduate programs. Referred to simply as "the Core," the new curriculum replaced an outdated and disparate list of general education requirements with an integrated course of study to be completed the first two years of college. This curriculum has become an essential part of Samford's undergraduate experience. It touches every aspect of university life by serving as the centripetal scholarly force uniting the humanities, the sciences, and the professional schools.

A general element of the Core Curriculum is University Core Texts (originally titled Cultural Perspectives), a two-semester introduction to the humanities. Under the founding leadership of Dean Rod Davis, Dr. John Mayfield, and Dr. Rosemary Fisk, Howard College faculty designed a curriculum that would introduce freshmen to their intellectual heritage and think critically about their place within it. As professors from many disciplines, they put their diversity to good use to create a course sequence that was interdisciplinary yet interconnected. To that end, Dr. Jason Wallace, who served as Core Texts director for more than a decade, structured the curriculum so that faculty could still teach to their individual strengths while all sections of University Core Texts still shared a common chronology and certain common texts.

During the first two years of the new curriculum, professors experimented with readings that complemented the common texts. Every section's list was different, yet certain works appeared consistently. At that point, it seemed advisable to bring these readings together in a shared sourcebook for the sake of convenience and cost. The sourcebook, our Samford Core Texts Reader, is a two-volume collection of materials that can be used in class, in research projects, and for personal enlightenment. While these collections represent a fragment of the thousands of documents that have shaped our culture, they are also a foundational starting point for our common conversation about the Western and Christian intellectual traditions.

The Core Texts Program offers a number of opportunities that encourage students' intellectual development in their first year of college:

• An entire academic year studying great works of literature, philosophy, history, and theology
• Small conversational class sizes
• Published professors who model the writing and reasoning skills they are teaching
• Study abroad opportunities in Athens, Rome, and London
• Public events reflecting the themes of the program; and

Core Texts In London

Each fall semester, faculty nominate the top students from their classes to participate in the London Core Texts Program held every July. This unique two-week experience allows talented and ambitious students an opportunity to study important authors and see famous sites from English history and literature while staying at Samford University's London residence, The Daniel House.

Classics Trips to Athens and Rome

The Core Texts Program helps to identify and encourage first-year students who would like to participate in the Classics & Philosophy Department trips to Athens and Rome. Each May term, the Classics & Philosophy Department annually alternates a spectacular three-week educational experience in Greece and Italy where students can experience the cultures that gave us the foundational literature of Western civilization.

Fall semester, students are introduced to great thinkers from the Greeks, the Romans, Early Christianity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. Central texts include:

Greece and the Ancient World

• Homer, The Iliad
• Greek Tragedy: Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes
• Herodotus, Histories
• Plato, Republic, Death of Socrates
• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics

Rome and Early Christianity

• Vergil, The Aeneid
• Cicero, Defense Speeches
• Seneca, Selected Letters
• Augustine, Confessions, The City of God
• The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas

Middle Ages

• Benedict of Nursia, Rule of Saint Benedict
• Selections from The Quran
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica
• Marie de France, The Lais
• Julian of Norwich, Revelations
• Dante, The Divine Comedy

Renaissance and European Exploration

• Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies
• Shakespeare, sonnets or a play selected by the professor
• Pico de Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man
• Popul Vu
• Bernardino de Sahagun, Florentine Codex

101 Asian World Core Texts

• Confucius, The Analects
• Siddhartha Gautama, The Path to Enlightenment
• Buddhist Nuns, Therigatha
• Lao Tzu, Tao-te Ching

Spring semester takes them through the Protestant Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the ideological foment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Central texts include:

Early Modernity

• Martin Luther, Freedom of A Christian
• John Calvin, Institutes of The Christian Religion
• Ignatius Loyola, Autobiography, Spiritual Exercises
• Margaret Fell, Women Speaking
• Galileo Galilei, Letter to The Grand Duchess Christina
• Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method

Enlightenment

• Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
• John Locke, Second Treatise On Government
• Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
• Thomas Paine, Common Sense, Age of Reason
• Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of The Rights of Woman

Nineteenth Century

• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
• Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments
• Frederick Douglass, The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro
• Charles Darwin, Origin of Species
• Friedrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals  
• A novel and/or poetry selected by the professor

Twentieth Century