First Steps Forward

With our new renovations, having a majority of the humanities courses in the Main Building will allow students to physically move as they intellectually move from discipline to discipline. It will support how the various disciplines are meant to complement each other as manifold reflections of the Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of God. All three manifest in various ways in every discipline taught at Subiaco. Like the buildings, the academic disciplines are unique but integral pieces of Subiaco.
     
We would be poorer if any were taken away, and as our physical campus reflects the way those disciplines support each other at a fundamental level, our community now reaches new heights.
   
For myself, I work towards that in teaching composition, which requires logical, complex thought as well as critical interpretation, analysis, and use of evidence. I also teach literature, covering many of the great works our western tradition has handed down to us. We strive to teach students how to be discerning consumers of literature in any medium. In addition to writing analytical, expository papers on those works, bringing in outside, scholarly sources, we seek to discern what is compelling about those works. How do they carry and convey Truth, Goodness, or Beauty? So many needed skills, such as empathy, are grown from these exercises.

It is my prayer that my work in conjunction with that of other teachers and other disciplines allows us to support each other and give students the context needed to harness the enthusiasm and energy received from the technology and newness of exciting realities like those opening up in Alumni Hall in a moral and responsible way ordered toward a life serving Christ and His Church. 

–Br. Raban Heyer, OSB