These Civitas sections of the required First-Year religion course and the core English literature course use as their common and core text Dietrich Bonhoeffer's essay "Structure of a Responsible Life." Each course, then, uses the Bonhoeffer essay to explore ideas and texts specific to its discipline. Though these courses are not formally linked or team-taught, they are closely related. Civitas students are advised to take these courses in the first year.
Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program
These Civitas sections of the required First-Year religion course and the core English literature course use as their common and core text Dietrich Bonhoeffer's essay "Structure of a Responsible Life." Each course, then, uses the Bonhoeffer essay to explore ideas and texts specific to its discipline. Though these courses are not formally linked or team-taught, they are closely related. Civitas students are advised to take these courses in the first year.
Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program
Addressing Bonhoffer's primary notion that responsible individuals are obliged to act on behalf of others, this course offers a semester-long study of the University as text. The course will examine the culture and environment of Augustana, with particular attention paid to how the expressed values of the institution come to be embodied in a physical, intellectual, and spiritual community. Readings and instructors for the course address those values from a number of disciplinary perspectives.
Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program
Consistent with Bonhoeffer's admonition that action be "in accordance with reality," courses under this heading emphasize the empirical and theoretical knowledge about the natural world necessary for living a responsible life in the twenty-first century.
Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program
Courses under this heading consider the ways in which personal responsibility as understood by conscience, and social responsibility as understood by laws, both correspond with and challenge each other.
Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program
Courses under this heading address Bonhoeffer's belief that "responsibility presupposes freedom and freedom can consist only in responsibility." Courses will also address the tension Bonhoeffer identifies between freedom and obedience, and real situations in which that tension may have a difficult resolution.
Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program
The place of responsibility, to use Bonhoeffer's phrase, is in vocation, the place where citizenship must extend from thought and reflection to action. This course ensures that students acquire a practical understanding of the responsibilities of citizenship by working for a semester in a field of their choosing. Civitas students will conclude the work of their experience with two reports: One detailing the work of the experience itself, and a second dealing with how that work addresses central concepts of the honors program. This is a discipline specific course, and is guided by a project advisor under the approval of the Civitas director. Students will present results of their experience at the Augustana Symposium or some other professionally relevant venue. This course could include an internship, service learning project, research project, international or other off-campus study program.
Admitted to the Civitas Honors Program