UCOR Section Descriptions

Course Description

Multicultural competence is an increasingly important asset in our increasingly diverse world. With systems of power and privilege permeating every aspect of our daily lives, developing foundational knowledge and skill sets to understand the structures of society is imperative. These systems can be particularly difficult to navigate in professional work environments. This course will explore multicultural awareness, knowledge, skills, and action with a focus on empowering your ability to make positive social change in professional workplace environments.

Course Description

The focus of this course will be on how Catholic theological and spiritual traditions have shaped the way Catholics have engaged with aspects of life in U.S. society, such as education, wealth and poverty, war and peace, work and leisure and the arts and literature.

Course Description

Latin American Liberation Theology is a dynamic and controversial approach to the issues of faith, human freedom and liberation. We will explore and deepen our understanding of who Jesus is within the lived faith experience of the Latin American reality.

Course Description

Paul was the first Christian storyteller on record. But even from the perspective of the earliest Christians, the Apostle Paul and his writings were mysterious and obscure. As Paul traveled throughout the Mediterranean world, he told mysterious stories about Jesus that were composed ad hoc, composed out of the diverse metaphors from the cultures he visited. In many ways, each story was a collage of images collected from the well-traveled highways to the darkest corners of the Mediterranean world. In this course, we will travel with Paul, examine his writings, try to make sense of his mysterious stories and letters, and appropriate them to our modern context by comparing them to movies such as The Matrix and The Truman Show.

Course Description

This introductory course will provide you with an overview of fundamental questions and issues within the broad realm of conflict and peace studies. What are the overarching concepts of justice and peace? What are the core practices of peacebuilding? What are the challenges? And how can we contribute to building a more just and peaceful society? Topics discussed will include conflict analysis, violence prevention, forgiveness and reconciliation, social justice and sustainable peace, political resistance and social transformation, as well as the traditional ethics of war and peace, namely, just war, pacifism, and just peace. In particular, the course will attend to the Christian intellectual discourse of conflict and peace, including its worldview, ethics, history, text, and inter–cultural and –religious historically and at present.

Course Description

The goal of this course is to provide an introduction to fundamental questions in environmental ethics as they relate to Christian theological resources and practices. This course will simultaneously allow students to examine contemporary issues including but not limited to global climate change; biodiversity loss; the relationship between race, gender, poverty, and the environment; and intersections with other issues such as interfaith dialogues, sustainable peacebuilding, and business and economics.

Course Description

This introductory course will provide you with an overview of fundamental questions and issues within the broad realm of conflict and peace studies. What are the overarching concepts of justice and peace? What are the core practices of peacebuilding? What are the challenges? And how can we contribute to building a more just and peaceful society? Topics discussed will include conflict analysis, violence prevention, forgiveness and reconciliation, social justice and sustainable peace, political resistance and social transformation, as well as the traditional ethics of war and peace, namely, just war, pacifism, and just peace. In particular, the course will attend to the Christian intellectual discourse of conflict and peace, including its worldview, ethics, history, text, and inter–cultural and –religious historically and at present.

Course Description

The Gospel of John records the mission of Jesus Christ as one of coming so "that they may have life and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10). Yet, we witness the opposite when we see powerful social forces (racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, etc) disrupt and dehumanize meaningful relationships between peoples. In this course, we will explore eight social issues to get at the heart of this contradiction. The first half of the quarter will focus on global relationships under the headings of global poverty, war, and environment. The second half of the quarter will attend to national relationships under the headings of national poverty, healthcare, incarceration, affirmative action, and feminism.

Course Description

This is the study of major world religious traditions, such as Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, with special emphasis on their inter-religious relationship with Roman Catholicism. The objectives of the course are to introduce students to the academic discipline of theological and religious studies, and to understand the tenets and history of Catholic traditions through the dialogical relationship with other religions.

Course Description

The goal of this course is to provide an introduction to fundamental questions in environmental ethics as they relate to Christian theological resources and practices. This course will simultaneously allow students to examine contemporary issues including but not limited to global climate change; biodiversity loss; the relationship between race, gender, poverty, and the environment; and intersections with other issues such as interfaith dialogues, sustainable peacebuilding, and business and economics.