Dear applicant and future Belmont Abbey student: 

Thank you for your interest in the Honors College at Belmont Abbey! The distinctive curriculum of the Honors College will enable you to acquire the knowledge and credentials necessary for a career while simultaneously obtaining a robust education in the Great Books. In the company of friends and in collaboration with dedicated teachers, you will explore works in history, science, literature, philosophy, and theology which have profoundly affected contemporary life. As you do so, you will grow in awareness of the foundational impacts of Ancient, Christian, and Modern thought, three perspectives that continue to make themselves felt; an understanding of these influences is essential if we are to understand ourselves, our purpose, and the deeper situation of our times.

During your first three years of study you will encounter texts by authors ranging from Plato, Euclid, and Aristotle to Dante, Shakespeare, and Nietzsche. Our flexible options allow you to pursue an education dedicated solely to the great books or to take any Belmont Abbey College major along with great books core. Thus, you will become versant in the eternal questions concerning matters of profound import: the existence and character or nature of God; the nature of the relationship between God and human beings; the nature of grace;  the nature of nature itself; what being human entails; the hierarchy of ends or purposes in human life;  the best way for human beings to live; what human happiness entails; the nature, character, and problematic aspects of human love; the character, variety, and ordering of human virtues and excellences. However, our program is  unique in that our Senior Year is committed to sustained consideration of Crises in the West which shape the world in which we live. Through these courses, graduates of the Honors College will be able to examine other timely and pressing matters, such as those pertaining to Love and Marriage, Globalism, Nationalism, and the Limits of Commerce, Freedom, Rights, and Virtue, and The Drama of Modern Atheism.

In the Honors College at Belmont Abbey, we facilitate slow and deliberate textual analysis,

habituating students to do a little bit well. We avoid an education that imparts a superficial if

encyclopedic gist of great authors, and in so doing we encourage an ongoing sense of wonder,

striving to shape analytical sharpness that students can apply to books and beyond. We work to help you see things as they should be and look realistically upon things as they are. Our graduates will have experienced controversy at its highest level, intellectual opposition at its strongest, and the constant imperatives of discipline and careful preparation. In such men and women, the professional world will find persons who have been introduced to careful and concentrated attentiveness to matters at hand and to the formulation of thoughtfully measured responses to matters high, low, and complex.

Over the course of four years, you will know an Honors College that extends far beyond the

curriculum, as you: expand your experience of the world through our Abbey-in-Ireland study

abroad; combine natural grandeur, leisure, and learning our Abbey-by-the-sea Academic retreat at Hilton Head Island; and encounter the beautiful through Symphonic, Theatrical, and Dance Performances.

Thank you for applying and I look forward to speaking with you soon!

Sincerely,

Dr. Joseph Wysocki

Joseph F. Wysocki, PhD

Dean of the Honors College

Belmont Abbey College

100 Belmont-Mt. Holly Rd.

Belmont, NC 28012

Office: 704.461.6831