Braniff News
"Our department has two fundamental guiding principles: the study of political philosophy and the study of American founding principles," said Richard Dougherty, MA '89 PhD '93, associate professor of politics and director of the politics graduate program. It is this emphasis on American political development combined with the quality of faculty and the rigor of the University of Dallas' politics doctoral program that led the U.S. Department of Education to award UD a $250,405 grant for stipend support for politics doctoral students through its Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need program.
The first time Monica Ashour, MTS '95 MH '04, read St. John Paul II's "Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body" was in 2000 with a small, grassroots group of parents and teachers, including DeAnn (Barta) Stuart, Ph.D., BA '98 MH '04, and Annie (Duffin) Vining, MTh '03. This group went on to found The Theology of the Body Evangelization Team Inc. (TOBET) on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8, 2001.
Professor of Humanities and Philosophy Jeffrey Lehman, MA '99 PhD '02, will be joining Braniff's Classical Education faculty in the fall. For the past six years, he has taught at Hillsdale College. Dr. Lehman shares with us some of what he has been doing in the years since he left UD and what he hopes to do upon his return.
UD students not only read St. Augustine's "Confessions" in Rome, traveling to Ostia to marvel at the place in which, according to Book IX, St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monica, had a joint mystical vision of God -- they also travel 4.4 miles from the Irving campus to read the text with residents of South Irving.
"Poetry is civically important for a healthy and happy society," said three-time UD alumnus Matt Mehan, BA '00 MA '09 PhD '14. "In other words, a healthy politics requires a healthy poetics."
As many as 100 classical school teachers will receive scholarships this year as the University of Dallas intensifies its efforts within the classical education arena. The university also plans to bring on two new tenure-track faculty members, each devoted primarily to one of two programs in the Braniff Graduate School of Liberal Arts.
Catherine Blume, BA '18, first became fascinated by Czech fairy tales as a child listening to the stories of her art teacher, a close family friend who had immigrated from the Czech Republic. This coming year, living in Prost?jov, Czech Republic, and teaching at Cyrilometod?jské Gzmnázium (a K-12 Catholic school there), she hopes to incorporate these fairy tales as well as their American counterparts, in addition to other children's literature from both traditions, in order to instill in her students an appreciation of culture -- both their own and that of the United States, exploring how these cultures compare and contrast with each other.
UD's Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition of handmade artist books and printed works, titled "The Space Between," which converges around the idea of the space between things both in a literal and a metaphorical sense.
Rhett Forman, PhD '17, is bringing the mission of the University of Dallas westward, to Stephenville, TX. He has been appointed by Tarleton State to design a general studies major, which he hopes to model after the curriculum he observed at UD.
In January, University of Dallas Braniff Graduate School Assistant Dean & Affiliate Assistant Professor Matthew Post, Ph.D. '15, visited John Adams Academy in Roseville, California. Founded in 2010, John Adams Academy is a K-12 charter school dedicated to creating servant leaders through a classical education.
"The roots of the STEM disciplines are grounded in our desire to know," she said. "STEM as thought of as its constituent parts (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), particularly science and mathematics, is fundamental to the study of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music) of the seven liberal arts," Weisse said. "But the quadrivium does not stand alone, it is paired with the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) which teaches a potent use of language."
Scott Crider, Ph.D., professor of English at the University of Dallas, and Matthew Spring, affiliate assistant professor of English, are writing a new book titled "A New Trivium: 100 Things to Know for College - and Life!" The work is devoted entirely to the trivium and how a classical education applies to the academic and social lives of college students through the liberal arts.
"Leading well is ultimately living well," said Brett Bourbon, associate professor of English and co-director of UD's new Master of Leadership program. "It requires the virtues of courage and perseverance. It requires self-awareness and an acuity in understanding others and complex situations."
The University of Dallas has always understood that good teaching goes beyond the simple transfer of information and has the power to shape individual human lives and characters. And, by a conservative estimate, UD alumni will pass on the wisdom of a people to approximately 40,000 students this year at public, private and charter schools. That's an appropriate legacy and a sober responsibility for a school who aims to form its students in virtue so that they may lead and serve their communities.
With more than 60 years of experience forming teachers, the university been hard at work on new ways to prepare teachers for work in this problematic and changing world.
In the most recent edition of Confluence, published by the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs, IPS student Stan Szczesny explores the theme of the Incarnation as it appears in Dante's Divine Comedy.
