About

Our goal is to foster critical consciousness and enable students to question conventional wisdom and learn how to work for a just society. We accomplish this by helping our students make relevant connections between course material and community service experience.

How We Do It

Throughout the years, we have found that the relationship between field work and classroom study evokes a rich conversation. The Western philosophical tradition began in wonder and inquiry about basic problems—asking, "What does it mean to be human?"

  • To enjoy freedom?
  • To fall in love or become a friend?
  • To participate in community?

These basic questions reassert themselves when a student acts as a companion to a disabled adult, tutors an inmate, extends a sympathetic ear to a suicidal person over a telephone line, or feeds a homeless person on a cold winter night.

Mission

The mission of the PULSE Program is to educate our students about social injustice by putting them into direct contact with marginalized populations and social change organizations and by encouraging discussion on classic and contemporary works of philosophy and theology.Ìý

Program Overview

The majority of the students enrolled in the PULSE Program take a 12-credit, yearlong Core-level course in philosophy and theology entitled Person and Social Responsibility. Several PULSE elective courses are also offered. In addition to classroom reflection and discussion, carefully selected field placements in after school programs, youth work, corrections, shelters, literacy, domestic violence, health clinics, housing programs, and HIV/AIDS services, among other areas, become the context in which students forge a critical and compassionate perspective both on society and themselves.

Curriculum

PULSE fulfills the entire Philosophy and Theology Core requirement.

12

Credits

2

Semesters

1

Course

12

Hours Per Week of Service