The Collegiate Center

I. The Collegiate Center
In its Statement of Purpose, the College pledges to offer curricular programs "to investigate and appreciate the richly diverse cultural, intellectual, and linguistic traditions shaping the contemporary world" and "to examine critically and understand the intellectual traditions woven into the history of Western thought." The College also commits its intention to the cultivation of "discernment of social, spiritual, and ecological needs of our time" and "a sense of responsibility for leadership and service in response to those needs."

The Collegiate Center addresses these commitments through a two-component general education requirement:

Journeys—one-course common sequence.
Journeys is a one semester, common course required of all first-year students entering Hendrix College. It is grounded in the College’s motto which (from Ephesians 4:13) may be translated as "toward a fulfilled person". The motto thus implies trajectory, a sense of movement or development, from one state of being or one way of living to another. It implies, in short, the notion of journey. This course takes the concept of journey as its touchstone and explores how different cultures and different peoples have made sense of their own life journeys.
The Journeys course is global in its perspective and interdisciplinary in its approach. For example, through an exploration of Homer’s Odyssey and some of the dialogues of Plato we probe how the ancient Greeks conceived of human journeys, both physical and metaphorical. We turn then to China, examining "the ways" for human flourishing pioneered by Confucius and the Buddha. In both Islam and Christianity, we can trace adherents’ spiritual journeys toward a relationship with the divine: to that end, we will study Islamic poetry and art, as well as the importance of the pilgrimage to Mecca, and we will encounter the mystical thought of Hildegard of Bingen. We explore journeys of a more contemporary nature by looking at Charles Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle, with its subsequent influence on his theory of evolution, and by reading texts pivotal to the rise of modern democracy, including selections from Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman. We probe journeys of self-discovery, such as the one revealed in W.E.B. DuBois’ Souls of Black Folk and the challenges faced by indigenous communities as they confront modernity. We will look, too, at the journeys toward independence made by nations and individuals as they have thrown off the yoke of imperialism—we look especially at the role of Gandhi in the move for Indian independence in the 20^th century. The exact works and kinds of journeys we examine will no doubt evolve as the course changes over the coming years. But our goal will remain constant. We aim to challenge our students to examine a variety of human journeys, with the hope that they will come to understand different conceptions of human fulfillment and that they will reflect deliberately on the paths their own lives might take.
Challenges of the Contemporary World (CW)–One course.
This component complements the Journeys component by exploring challenges of the contemporary era. Such challenges include environmental concerns, racial and ethnic differences, social inequities regarding gender and sexuality, and other issues of world citizenship. By confronting contemporary social issues, students prepare themselves to join a responsible world community striving to a just, sustainable, and spiritually satisfying future. This component of the curriculum is a flexible one-course requirement to be fulfilled after the first year.

Courses meeting the Challenges of the Contemporary World requirement are listed below. Courses from this list offered in 2002-2003 are noted with a "CW" in the Schedule of Classes, 2002-2003.

ANTH 220 Cultures of India
ANTH 250 Visual Anthropology
ANTH 320 Gender and Environment
ANTH 360 Global Studies: Selected Topics
ANTH 370 Psychological Anthropology
BIOL 104 Environmental Biology
ECON 100 Survey of Economic Issues
ECON 340 Environmental Economics
ECON 360 International Economics
ENGL 250 Women and African Literature
ENGL 314 The Age of Sensibility
ENGL 363 English as a Global Language
GEND 250 Introduction to Gender Studies
HIST 170-E Contemporary Europe
HIST 280-G Contemporary Africa
HIST 320-G Gender in African History
HIST 330-G Culture and Colonialism
HIST333-E Russia since 1917
HIST 350 Environmental History
HIST 360-A Vietnam and the 60’s
MATH 115 Mathematics in Contemporary Issues
MUSI 270 Survey of Global Musics
PHIL 215 Ethics and Society
PHIL 225 Ethics and Medicine
PHIL 270 Environmental Philosophy
PHIL 310 Feminist Thought
PHIL 315 Ethics and Relations to Friend, Kin, and Community
POLI 230 Public Administration
POLI 235 Public Policy
POLI 250 Global Politics I
POLI 251 Global Politics II
POLI 260 Political Economy
POLI 300 Feminist Political Thought
POLI 372 China and East Asia
POLI 373 Palestine, Israel, & Middle East
POLI 380 Gender, Sexuality, and American Politics
POLI 390 Race and American Politics
POLI 430 Topics in Comparative Politics
POLI 440 Topics in Global Politics
PSYC 400 Psychology of Gender
RELI 200-F State of the World
RELI 330-F Women and Religion
RELI 360-D African American Religion
SOCI 250 Gender and Family
SOCI 270 Racial and Ethnic Minorities
SOCI 300 The Urban Community
SOCI 360 Social Change/Social Movements
SOCI 375 Environmental Sociology
SOCI 380 Medical Sociology
SOCI 390 Social Inequality
TART 330 Theatre and the Challenges of the Contemporary World

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