‘Theology in Life’

Majors will go on to take upper-level courses in areas including sacramental theology, the New Testament, and Catholic spirituality. The capstone for the major program, Fletcher explained, will be a seminar relating theology to an area of life. “Someone who's doing science education and theology for example would do a project on, say, the theology of stewardship and environmental science," she said. A student double-majoring in math and theology, she continued, could study the problem of knowledge.

“You start with the questions people have about life, and then, ‘What are the answers? Why would you take a Catholic position?’" said Fletcher.

This generation of undergraduates is, both by empirical and anecdotal accounts, acutely interested in the so-called “big questions." A survey of 112,000 freshmen conducted by University of California at Los Angeles researchers in 2004 found, for instance, that 74 percent of first-year students discuss the meaning of life with friends, and 76 percent search for life's purpose.


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