Catholic Studies, Secular Style

THE GEORGIA BULLETIN, Jan. 11 — In a national first, Atlanta’s Emory University has instituted a new Catholic-studies minor. According to the Bulletin, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Emory’s new program is the only such minor in the country within a non-Catholic college or university. The minor focuses on Catholicism’s intellectual and cultural contributions to Western thought, from a secular and academic perspective. Emory philosophy professor Jack Zupko said about the course, “We need to train student scholars to look at religion and secular interests in a way that’s not hostile.”

Low-Tech Ed

DESERET MORNING NEWS (SALT LAKE CITY), Jan. 13 — A new Catholic college will open its doors this August in Lander, Wyo. Wyoming Catholic College will feature a classical curriculum combined with religious instruction and wilderness experiences. TVs, cellphones and other personal technological devices will be banned at the college, and access to computers and the Internet will be strictly limited to scholastic assignments. “We tell them ‘God gave you the greatest computer ever created,’” Father Robert Cook, the college’s president, told the Morning News. “You need to take four years to learn how to run it.”

‘Conservative’ Christendom

YOUNG AMERICA’S FOUNDATION, Jan. 12 — Christendom College has been named one of the country’s “Top Ten Conservative Colleges.” The Front Royal, Va.-based school was awarded that distinction by the Young America’s Foundation in its third annual list of top conservative colleges.