Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Launches New Four-Year B.A. Degrees

In February of 2024, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Barry’s Bay, Ontario, Canada, was granted permission to offer majors in Classical and Early Christian Studies, History, and Literature within a new four-year Bachelor of Arts degree.

These new majors, culminating in advanced senior-level courses and honours thesis projects, build on the college’s existing interdisciplinary three-year Bachelor of Catholic Studies degree to delve more deeply into each discipline in Catholic perspective, fostering commitment to Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.

Each major in the four-year B.A. allows students to specialize in a particular field while still being holistically informed by the College’s foundational disciplines: theology and philosophy.

Grounded in Faithful Teaching

Students at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College all receive a comprehensive liberal arts formation grounded in faithful Catholic teaching. Required courses are primarily in theology, philosophy, history, literature, Latin, sacred music, fine arts, mathematics, natural science, and the social sciences.

Our mission statement: “Faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church, and guided by Ex Corde Ecclesiae, SWC seeks to form the whole person, especially intellectually and spiritually, while respecting the freedom of the individual. Our curriculum offers a deep and wide-ranging understanding of Western civilization along with the traditions of the Church.”

Students study the ideas of thinkers who have formed the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and examine great works in dialogue with this tradition. Along their journey, students will encounter the rigorous intellects of figures such as Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante, St. Teresa of Ávila, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Flannery O’Connor, and Pope Benedict XVI.

Yielding Real Fruit

These students’ careful and creative research, guided by faithful Catholic mentors, is yielding real fruit in fresh scholarship. It’s beautiful to see the fourth-year students gaining a capacity for deeper, robust, and substantial thought as flourishing young thinkers who will contribute to the future of the Church.

One is considering ordination and undertaking discernment processes even as he envisions the shape of his thesis. The composition and presentation of an honours thesis prepares students not only for graduate studies and teaching positions in secondary and higher education but also for future service in education, law, communications, and the Church.

Advancing Catholic Education

The department chairs of the three new majors offered through the B.A. degree are thrilled about the opportunities afforded by the new programs.

Dr. Heinze (PhD, Catholic University of America) reflects: “Students will gain a reading knowledge of Latin and learn to interpret ancient writings in their original context.” He trusts the Classical and Early Christian Studies major will “foster in students a life of deep reflection on the human condition and the Christian faith.”

Dr. Persson (PhD, University of British Columbia) notes that students who engage in the literature major will “develop listening, writing, and speaking skills. For those interested in the Catholic imagination, the study of literature is particularly important, as literature is the arena in which various philosophies and theologies can be fleshed out and tested against the contours of reality.”

Dr. Shaw (PhD, University of Toronto) emphasizes how students in the History major “learn to conduct historical research methodically—something often ignored today—especially via gathering material and analyzing sources.”

He adds, “Drawing from their greater appreciation for themselves and for human nature enhanced by a study of the reasons for the choices that people have made in the past, graduates leave better able to understand and engage with others in society today—something this broken world sorely needs.”

We are confident the three new majors in our freshly minted four-year B.A. degree will prepare young Catholics to face future challenges with confidence, poise, and grace.

Our Alumni and Students

Our alumni from the preexisting Bachelor of Catholic Studies degree have already been thriving within graduate programs in English, Philosophy, Theology, Museum Studies, Communications, and Political Science. They are serving in the wider world as businesspeople, professors, teachers, journalists, seminarians, priests, religious sisters, and communications specialists.

Students completing the new four-year B.A. degree and launching into the world will forge further pathways into graduate studies in Classics, History, and Literature. They will also help form the worlds of secondary and post-secondary education, editing and publishing, advanced communications, law, and politics for generations to come.

About Dr. Natasha Duquette

Dr. Natasha Duquette is a Professor of Literature at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College. She is the author of 30-Day Journey with Jane Austen (2020) and has edited two essay collections: Sublimer Aspects: Interfaces between Literature, Aesthetics, and Theology (2007) and, with Elisabeth Lenckos, Jane Austen and the Arts (2013). Her articles on literature and aesthetics have appeared in journals such as Christianity and Literature, Mosaic, and Persuasions. Her new book on contemplative poetics is under contract with Cambridge University Press.