The twin missions of the Department of Politics are to teach students to examine politics from the perspective of political philosophy and to educate its students for leadership in public affairs. Prepare for a career in law, journalism, business, government, or teaching through a concentrated course of study in political philosophy and contemporary politics. Develop and solidify your capacity for truly independent and rigorous thinking about political, social, and moral questions.
"I applied to the Politics program because it is one of the few in which students have the opportunity to thoroughly explore political theory. I have grown immensely during my time at UD, discovering the philosophic roots of politics and encountering the various ideas that have shaped the world."
-Anna Dean, IPS grad student
The graduate curriculum ranges from the Greek polis through the great Catholic thinkers of the Middle Ages to the politics of contemporary liberal democracies. Master the most rewarding political works of the Western tradition and the American experiment in self-government while considering the great themes and issues of political thought and experience: justice, equality, liberty, morality, religion, and human nature.
Many of the courses characteristic of the program involve a close reading of the texts of the Great Tradition of discourse on political order.
The program is designed to enable the student to complete its requirements in a year of full-time study if he so desires. Summer school courses are sometimes offered and may be of particular interest to part-time students.
Chair and Associate Professor of English Debra Romanick Baldwin, Ph.D., and Professor of Physics and recent Interim Dean of Constantin College Sally Hicks, Ph.D., have secured a $299,078 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support writing instruction at UD for the fall 2020 semester.
+ Read MoreHis first step was to enroll in physician’s assistant school at Baylor’s College of Medicine, a career trajectory to which he had aspired since his early childhood. Nowadays, Jonathan Cunningham, BA ’17, is dedicated to the vocational pursuit of comfort and healing at MD Anderson in Houston, among the largest cancer treatment centers in the U.S., where he was once a chemotherapy patient himself.
+ Read MoreDuring his Rome semester in 1991, Joseph Meaney, BA '93, with his friends (now Father) Kevin Cook, BA '94, and (now Texas State Representative and UD Trustee) Tan Parker, BA '93, attended a private Mass with Pope St. John Paul II. Several weeks earlier, they had hand-delivered a letter to the Swiss Guards outside St. Peter's requesting the Mass and including their contact information; at last, they'd received the phone call instructing them to be at the Bronze Gates at 5 a.m.
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