In the summer of 2008 the Witherspoon Institute is offering for the first time the Moral Life and the Classical Tradition Seminar, a week-long program for rising high school seniors interested in the classical philosophical tradition and its influence in the Christian moral life. The daily schedule will be comprised of both academic seminars and extracurricular activities. Seminars will be led by distinguished university faculty in the humanities. The seminar is open to young men and women and will take place from June 15th to the 21st on the historic campus of Princeton University. All seminar activities will be conducted separately according to gender.

The seminar consists of two complementary components. The classical component of the seminar will be a course on the Dialogues of Plato offered by Ave Maria College Professor Michael Sugrue. Previously a faculty member of Princeton University’s Council of the Humanities, his courses on the Western canon and intellectual history earned some of the most positive and enthusiastic student evaluations ever received there. Prof. Sugrue will introduce seminar participants to one of Western civilization’s most famous authors: the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. A particular focus of the course will be the ways in which Plato laid the philosophical and moral foundations for the Christian tradition that came after him. Students will be expected to have carefully studied Plato’s Apology, Crito, Phaedo, and Euthyphro before arriving on campus.

The second component of the course consists of lectures on the rational foundations of Christian moral thought, including: the relationship between faith and reason, Christianity and science, sex, marriage, and bioethics. These sessions are intended to enhance students’ understanding of the arguments contained in the Christian moral view in response to some of the most pressing academic challenges of our day. Dr. Seana Sugrue, Associate Professor of Politics and Chairman of the Department of Politics at Ave Maria University, will lead these sessions for the women; and Dr. Paul Macdonald, Assistant Professor of Theology at Bucknell University, will lead sessions for the men.

These two components will be combined with quiet time for study and extracurricular activities (sports, cultural outings, study breaks, etc).

Application Requirements: a filled application form (found here), the student’s most up-to-date high school transcript, one letter of recommendation from a teacher, and a 500-word essay. The essay must answer the following question that Plato’s teacher Socrates poses in one of the Dialogues: “Is virtue something that can be taught? Or does it come by practice? Or is it neither teaching nor practice that gives it to a man, but natural aptitude or something else?” (Meno, 70a).

Please email your essay and application form to Patrick Hough at phough@winst.org. A hardcopy of your teacher recommendation and your transcript should be mailed to:

After being admitted, students are required to pay a $200 fee in order to attend the seminar.

Faculty Profiles

Michael Sugrue, Ph.D., is a Professor of History and the Chairman of the History Department at Ave Maria University. Professor Sugrue holds a B.A. from The University of Chicago and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Prior to his time at Ave Maria, Professor Sugrue taught history, philosophy, religion, literature, and politics at Princeton. In his ten years at Princeton, Dr. Sugrue was a member of the Council for the Humanities and the Department of Politics. Earlier he taught at Johns Hopkins and Columbia. Professor Sugrue has taped more than one hundred fifty lectures for the Teaching Company, which produces the “Superstar Teachers” series of tapes. Professor Sugrue teaches world history, American history, the history of Western philosophy, and the history of literature.

Paul A. Macdonald is Assistant Professor of Religion at Bucknell University, and formerly was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. He teaches courses in Christianity, the history of Christian thought, and Western religious thought. His main areas of research are philosophical theology, Christian theology, and Christian philosophy. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, an M.A. from Yale University, and a B.A. from Wheaton College. Currently, he is completing a book in philosophical theology entitled Knowledge and the Transcendent: An Inquiry into God’s Relationship to the Mind.

Seana Sugrue is Associate Professor of Politics and Chairman of the Department of Politics at Ave Maria University. She went to Ave Maria University from Princeton University, where she was the Associate Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Her research interests include civil liberties and constitutional governance, the role of law in the formation of a just society, civic institutions such as the family, and pro-life concerns. She teaches courses in Constitutional Law, American Civilization, International Relations, and Public Policy, among other subjects. Dr. Sugrue holds a B.B.A. from Bishop’s University, an LL.B. from the University of Ottawa, and both an LL.M. and a D.C.L. from McGill University.

Updated April 10, 2008

Posted December 21, 2007