Euclidean Geometry in the Core Curriculum – an Epic Study…

Very few schools are quite like the University of Dallas. In fact, no school is quite like the University of Dallas. A school where advanced technology is secretly frowned upon and long skirts and bowties are main-stream, UD – a contained, almost secret, bubble of classical knowledge within the modern world – is a place like no other. Boasting a Core Curriculum incorporating classic novels and solid Theological Truth, coupled with a wide range of History, Logic, and Philosophy courses, the University of Dallas seeks to train students to think independently. Striving to impress an understanding of things of both the old and new worlds in hopes that graduates will go out into the world integrating their newfound understanding of Truth into their jobs, classrooms, independent businesses, and daily lives, the University of Dallas is tag-lined as “the place for independent thinkers.” The mission statement claims:
“The University of Dallas is a Catholic institution that seeks to educate its students to develop the intellectual and moral virtues, to prepare themselves for life and work, and to become leaders in the community. Through intensive teaching, interactive discourse, and critical analysis, the university pursues truth, virtue, and wisdom in the liberal arts and professional studies.”

Embedded within the unique tradition of the University of Dallas is the Core Curriculum. Utilizing, first and foremost, ancient thought, the Core provides a solid foundation for students and professors to maintain a concrete basis for academic thought and growth. Very distinctive to UD, the Core is designed to present what the best learners of the past have already discovered. In studying these concepts, students are able to further engage in dialogue and continue their search for Truth. Over the course of two years, students take over 60 credit hours that are part of the Core. With the courses constantly building upon one another, the very first Literary Traditions class somehow connects to the very last Philosophy, History, or Theology course. As the Core classes are taken, a student’s knowledge is constantly expanding, allowing the serious student to be treated with respect and dignity as information is presented that is truly vital to their growth in the intellectual and academic world. Incorporating important texts such as Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, Plato’s Republic, Kennan’s American Diplomacy, Henry Adam’s autobiography and study of the American culture, the writings of Shakespeare, Augustine’s Confessions, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and numerous other works that provide a glimpse into the minds of profoundly influential thinkers, no book can be excluded because each presents a different concept that is most necessary to preserving the ideals of the University. Included within this Core curriculum is a most vital Mathematics course that studies the first thoughts of an ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid.

Considered the “Father of Geometry,” Euclid of Alexandria lived in the time of Ptolemy the First, about 323 BC to 283 BC. Very little is known about Euclid’s actual life, but many assume that he studied at Plato’s Academy in Greece and was very active in the Library at Alexandria. It is Euclid’s Elements that makes him the patriarch of mathematics. The first single, logically coherent framework of mathematical thought, the Elements included a series of precise mathematical proofs that still hold over 23 centuries later. The first math textbook, probably dreaded by all students who came in contact with it, presented a method that taught how to incorporate a small set of axioms in proving a series of propositions (theorems) that were derived from these axioms. Explaining plane geometry, axiomatic systems, and solid geometry of three dimensions, Euclid eventually extended his mathematical thought to a finite number of dimensions, establishing the Elements as the unparalleled text that would lead to the number theory of modern mathematics today.

The basic purpose of Euclid’s geometrical methods was and is, quite simply, to draw conclusions after certain information is given. This simple deduction process, one that most people are taught in the early days of elementary school, is absolutely essential to basic thought processes. When information is presented one must be able to infer that the said information will lead to certain actions happening or particular concepts being true. For example: Jane knows the refrigerator is broken, and because the milk she bought at the store will sour if she leaves it in a hot refrigerator, she decides to put the gallon of milk in her neighbor’s refrigerator until she can get her own fixed. On the mathematical level of Euclid, this very simple deduction process is incorporated when proving the existence of points, lines, points of intersection, etc. In short, it is Euclid’s Elements - a mathematical text integrated into the Core Curriculum at the University of Dallas - that introduced and preserved the deductive thought process into the intellectual world.

To create this intellectual world so necessary for the preservation of a functioning society, a liberal arts education must be instituted and fostered. For a liberal arts education to truly work, students must immerse themselves in an environment where conversations can be made with the thinkers of the ancient world. Just as the numerous dialogues of Plato were written as a conversation between a superior thinker and an inferior pupil, so too must the University experience be an exchange between the minds of old and the fresh young minds anxiously anticipating the molding of their untainted thought. Therefore, this education is more than a student sitting within a classroom, drearily taking notes and regurgitating information weeks later on a monstrously huge exam. This education is training the student to be modest and bold, unpretentious and daring. Students must humble themselves enough to quiet their restless thought so the established thinkers of the ancient world can penetrate their minds, yet they must also take these thoughts and use them to break away from the noise of the modern world. There can be no compromising of this concept, simply because it is what makes a liberal arts education truly liberal; that is to say, completely open to the thoughts of others, but aware of the necessity of implementing these thoughts into a world so often polluted with the thoughtlessness, the cheapness, of contemporary thought. It is, in short, a return to the old world in order that the new world exists as a Truth filled society.

This concept of a liberal arts education is exactly what the University of Dallas strives for, and often accomplishes, every day. The University of Dallas maintains that it is “committed to the study and development of the western tradition of liberal education, and the Catholic intellectual tradition,” as well as being guided by “principles of learning that acknowledge transcendent standards of truth and excellence that are themselves objects of inquiry and research.” Quite simply, UD hopes to foster an understanding of the liberal arts and the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church while also striving to study the Truths of the world that surpass the merely physical. On a very basic level of explanation, the University of Dallas is built on the concept that seeking answers -investigating ancient and modern thought – will lead to complete enlightenment and understanding of Truth. A liberal arts education is, as Dr. Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago says, “an education in culture, of culture.”

Thus, the liberal arts education – the education that guides students through the ancient minds so that their modern minds might function in accord with Truth – cannot exist without the Core curriculum placed at the very center of the UD education. Without four required English classes taking students through the most primary novels and poems since the first words were written on any page, without four History courses guiding students through the events of the European and American worlds, without three Philosophy classes incorporating the most basic and most advanced thoughts of those who questioned ‘why?”, without two Theology courses studying the Biblical texts and the Theological traditions of the western world no student, at least no self-respecting student, would gain the knowledge necessary to survive in the harried intellectual world of today. But before any of these courses can be taken – before Homer can be read, Dante studied, and Plato exhorted upon, before Henry Adams can be critiqued, Hopkins analyzed, and Augustine pored over – a class is vital, absolutely necessary, for the young, inquiring mind, Euclid must be examined. The Elements must sit first on any liberal arts student’s shelf, to be perused frequently, to be pondered regularly, to be considered habitually. Deductive thought is essential for the liberal arts student, simply because if they are to engage in the conversation necessary with the ancient thinkers then they must be able to draw conclusions from what they discover in order that they implement the thoughts of those who have come before.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, an American poet greatly influenced by Shakespeare and Milton, wrote:
Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.
Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,
And lay them prone upon the earth and cease
To ponder on themselves, the while they stare
At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere
In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese
Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release
From dusty bondage into luminous air.

O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,
When first the shaft into his vision shone
Of light anatomized! Euclid alone
Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they
Who, though once only and then but far away,
Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

Her point, quite simply…Only Euclid, the Greek mathematician so keen on presenting deductive thought by way of axioms proving theorems, has truly seen beauty. Only this pupil of Plato’s prodigies has experienced that which is truly glorious, because only he has pondered the things that are and the things that could be. No one else, neither then nor now, has had the privilege of seeing the beautiful for what it truly is – an unabashed, most spectacular gift from the Heavens themselves.

It is only the student committed to the study of Euclid that will advance within this world. Only the man, woman, or child dedicated to the deductive thought process that will have the chance to encounter the splendid things of the world. It is the UD student’s study of Euclidean Geometry - the examination of Euclid of Alexandria’s Elements - that will lead their minds to magnificent discoveries, allowing them to, again and again, encounter Truth.
QED

SHINE Catholic Work Camp

Quick update...
I've been hired to work with the SHINE Catholic Work Camp this upcoming summer...I'll be travling to St. Louis, Missouri, Memphis, Tennessee, Galveston, Texas, Lake Charles, Louisiana, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Indiantown, Florida, with the SHINE staff. I'm quite excited...the opportunity to minister to youth all across the country, drawing them into a deeper relationship, bringing them to the realization that the one true truth in this world is God. As the summer begins I'll start posting updates on the camps and the trips, sharing with all of you the journey I'll be embarking upon.
2 things I ask...
First - if you know any youth group that would be interested in attending one of these camps, please check out the SHINE work camp website (shinecatholicworkcamp.com)
Second - pray pray pray...nothing is more crucial to the success of this camp...

In peace and love,
Katie

An Inspiring Letter to an Inspiring Group

-While I know I’m not exactly a part of the CORE Team anymore, I thought I’d beg you to please read this to the kids while they were on retreat…thought it might serve as a nice little pick-me-up for them (and hopefully for all you adults…)
-As finals are quickly approach over here in Dallas, I’ve found myself often locked up in the far corner of the 3rd floor of the library, huddled over a stack of books, hastily reading by the light of a flickering candle, absorbing the truths that pour forth from Plato’s Republic and Homer’s Odyssey…but naturally, since I’m a perpetual procrastinator and in constant search of a reprieve from the tiresome work that is studying, I found myself reading one of my favorite books the other day…a book that often brings me back to my childhood, a simple tale that speaks of love and friendship, hope and despair, the mind and the heart…
-Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince, perhaps one of the most profoundly inspiring books ever written, tells the story of a young boy from a far off planet who reveals the truths of life to a weathered, jaded middle aged man. As he tells of his adventures in “planet hopping” and meeting people of all types, this little prince is able to share with this old man how simple the complex concepts of love and friendship truly are…
-It is as the two are wandering through the desert, searching for a reprieve from the extreme heat that the young boy shares with the older man the greatest truth…something that each and every person needs to hear at least once in life.
-“People where you live,” the little prince said, “grow five thousand roses in one garden…yet they don’t find what they’re looking for…” “They don’t find it,” I answered.” “And yet, what they’re looking for could be found in a single rose, or a little water…” “Of course,” I answered. And the little prince added, “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”
-As I’m sure you all know, especially considering you were chosen to be members of the CORE Team, there is a greater purpose in life…a point to our existence…a reason why we are here. And, allow me to be professorial and philosophical for just a moment, that reason is of course, founded in the universal truth that God made man, God loved man to the point of sending His son to save man, and God continues to support and maintain the lives of man. That is to say, my young friends, our entire point of existence, our purpose in living, breathing – walking and talking – is God…He is why we are here, He is why we exist, and we cannot ever even attempt to deny that.
-Now how, you may ask yourself, does this possibly relate to a little boy’s rambling nonsense about hearts with eyes? Well in a very simple way…God saw with His heart…He did not see the world for what it would become – a tumultuous land ridden with people inclined to sin and deny His existence – but instead saw the world as a place that could, on some level, cultivate His love. And If God saw with His heart, and our entire purpose is God (the worship of and the striving to be like Him,) then we too must work to see with our hearts… Despite our natural tendencies to want to judge, our base desires to think ourselves better and more worth, we must, above all else, attempt to see as God saw…to love as God loved…to experience the world with a sense of love and compassion.
-Often times, we can, as very hardworking, focused members of this Diocesan CORE Team get caught up in the hustle and bustle of getting things done…we spend countless hours painting signs and writing witty phrases on banners that will hang for only 2 days and then be pulled down, never to be seen again. We brainstorm endlessly about what type of workshop would draw a crowd and what general theme the keynote speaker should focus on. In the mess that is the work we do in order to put on a good show, we often get lost…we get disillusioned…we lose a sense of what the actual point of it all really is. And just like the point in our lives is God -the focus to become like Him, to love unconditionally as He did- so too must be the focus of your work as CORE Team members.
-The Little Prince wanted the middle aged man to know that sometimes, despite our initial qualms, the most evident truths – the most startling realities – are right in front of us…We don’t need a thousand and one roses to discover their beauty…we simply need one. It is this idea of simplicity, this concept of experiencing and seeing things that are right in front of us, that can be most challenging and most difficult to establish and maintain. But it is in this challenge, it is in this difficult feat, that you will come to recognize and acknowledge how fantastic – how truly amazing – things will become when you begin to look at them with an eye of love, with an attitude attuned to the heart…
-So the point…the focus of this entire rant that I was suddenly compelled to email to Ms. T…
-This weekend, as a CORE Team, try to establish ways you can look with your heart…work together to become a group that personifies this concept. The motto for the year was “Becoming the change you wish to see in the world…” You become that change – you attain your goal – when you begin to love in every aspect of your life…when your heart, your love for others, becomes the thing that guides you and your head, your logical reason, becomes secondary.
-My hope and prayer is that this weekend proves fruitful on many counts…get your work done, have a fun time doing it. Bond as a CORE Team – establish these friendships that will truly stand the test of time…and most importantly, discover the sense of love that will guide you – begin to look at things of this world with your heart – and you will truly begin to discover God in all that you do.