Angelicum Great Books Program

Online
www.angelicum.net/greatbooksprogram

Overview
Innovations in online learning are announced
every year, but with the Angelicum Great
Books Program and its new network of affili-
ated colleges and universities, Catholic stu-
dents in particular stand to benefit.
To our knowledge, there is nothing quite
Angelicum
like the Angelicum Great Books Program,
Great Books Program
which has educated teenage and young adult
Catholics for nearly 10 years. It offers an en-
tirely online and distance education curricu-
lum that can be studied from home or any-
where else at low cost, while still hewing to
quick facts
a classical approach to education, including
reading directly from the Great Books and Founded: 2000
Socratic discussion groups (via live com- Type of institution: Distance learning under-
graduate program
munications over the Internet). Inspired by
Setting: Online
Thomas Aquinas College (also recommended
Undergraduate enrollment: 105 (2008-09)
in The Newman Guide) and the former Pearson
Undergraduate cost: $3,000 (tuition only
Integrated Humanities Program at Kansas 2009–10)
University, the series of eight courses com- Undergraduate majors: None
bine high academic standards with a strong
and faithful Catholic emphasis. Five Key Points
Angelicum, not to be confused with the
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas 1. Online Catholic Great Books program
including Socratic dialogue.
in Rome also profiled in this Guide, does not
grant degrees; instead it offers a series of un- 2. Earn up to 48 college credit hours
dergraduate-level online courses that can toward an undergraduate degree.
count toward a degree program elsewhere. 3. Start earning college credits as early
The American Council on Education (ACE)— as age 14.
a national association of colleges and univer- 4. Very low cost relative to traditional
sities serving about 80 percent of students colleges.
in the U.S.—has evaluated Angelicum’s pro- 5. College network allows students to
gram and recommended that colleges grant complete degree in as few as two
six credit hours for each course, which are of- years.
fered one per semester.

The Newman Guide 259

Angelicum Great Books Program
Although many colleges accept ACE-rec-
ommended credits, not all do; students should
inquire with colleges they may be consider-
ing. To address the uncertainty, Angelicum
has forged agreements with three colleges to
guarantee acceptance of credits from Angeli-
cum and, in some cases, the other participat-
ing institutions. Two of the colleges—Campi-
on College in Australia and Catholic Distance
University—are in this edition of The Newman
Guide. In the coming years, Angelicum hopes
to expand its network of credit-sharing col-
leges, which it has dubbed the Universities of
Western Civilization.
The result is a solid Catholic program
that offers great flexibility, even allowing
ambitious students to get started early with
college. High school students can enroll for
one Angelicum course per semester as early
as age 14, earning as many as 48 credit hours
toward a bachelor’s degree before graduating
from high school. This can be part of a home
school curriculum, or it can be accomplished
independently by any high school student.
Angelicum has even worked with schools
that enrolled entire classes in the Angelicum
Great Books Program.
Students who wait to start Angelicum’s
program until after high school will need
four years to complete 48 credit hours, more
than a third of the way toward a degree. But
some colleges—including Catholic Distance
University—will allow students to take Ange-
licum courses at the same time or even after
their own courses; students will simply have
to prove completion of the Angelicum courses
before earning a degree. Other students may
be content to spread out their studies over
time, thereby reducing annual costs and si-
multaneously getting a head start on a career
or exploring a religious vocation.
The Angelicum Great Books Program is
the brainchild of philosopher Dr. Peter Red-
path, educator Patrick Carmack and online
program director Steve Bertucci. They also
260
manage the affiliated Angelicum Academy,
a nursery-through-high school curriculum
for homeschoolers. Many of the Angelicum
Academy’s high school students take courses
from the Great Books Program, but the two
programs are managed separately, and most
Great Books Program students are not en-
rolled in the Academy.
Because The Newman Guide is equally
concerned about students’ personal and spir-
itual formation as it is about quality liberal
arts curricula, we generally recommend insti-
tutions with strong campus ministry, residen-
tial and extracurricular programs. Although
an online college program cannot provide
these, Catholic families may find much to ad-
mire in a classical Catholic curriculum that al-
lows students to stay home at a very low cost.
The 2008-2009 tuition was $1,500 per course
or $3,000 per year, and Angelicum offers a 15
percent discount for making early payments.
Angelicum hopes to expand the program
beyond the current 105 students through its
Universities of Western Civilization network,
which was newly launched in 2009. Interest-
ingly, Angelicum has been promoting its pro-
gram to Catholic families in poorer countries,
resulting in an internationally diverse stu-
dent body.
Governance
Angelicum’s chairman and director of the
Great Books Program is Dr. Peter Redpath, a
respected philosophy professor at St. John’s
University, New York. He has written numer-
ous articles and books and is the former exec-
utive editor of the Value Inquiry Book Series
for Editions Rodopi, an academic publisher
based in the Netherlands and New York. He
earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from the State
University of New York at Buffalo.
Dr. Jude Dougherty, the celebrated dean
emeritus of The Catholic University of Amer-
ica’s school of philosophy, has praised Dr.
The Newman Guide

Redpath as “a profound thinker… a learned
and serious philosopher who shows clearly
that ideas have consequences… given the
breath of his historical survey and his ana-
lytic power, he is reminiscent of Hegel in his
most sweeping” (from the June 1999 issue of
The Review of Metaphysics).
Angelicum’s president, Patrick Carmack,
J.D., has a varied background as a former
administrative law judge at the Oklahoma
State Corporation Commission, member of
the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, former CEO of
an independent petroleum exploration and
production company, and founder and for-
mer chairman of the International Caspian
Horse Society. He participated in Dr. Mor-
timer Adler’s last several Socratic discussion
groups in Maryland and California in 1999
and 2000.
The colleges of the Universities of West-
ern Civilization network are each indepen-
dently governed, accredited institutions. The
partners have formal agreements to ensure
that Angelicum’s credits are accepted.
Public Identity
Clear about its Catholic identity and fidel-
ity to Catholic teaching, Angelicum was for-
mally recognized as a Catholic educational
program by Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colo-
rado Springs, Colorado, in June 2009.
Angelicum strives to combine “Catholic
wisdom and secular learning.” This provides
a “grounding in Catholic doctrine that is seen
as a great counterpoint to the modern errors
of which, due to their overwhelming influ-
ence on contemporary life, no liberally edu-
cated man deserving of that title can remain
ignorant.”
Dr. Redpath and Carmack say the found-
ing impetus for the new Universities of West-
ern Civilization network came during their
participation in the World Conference on
Catholic Education held in Toruń, Poland, in
The Newman Guide
Angelicum Great Books Program
2008. The conference was presided over by the
Vatican prefect for Catholic education, Zenon
Cardinal Grocholewski. Participants signed a
declaration in support of Ex corde Ecclesiae in
contrast to the 1967 Land O’Lakes Statement,
by which several U.S. Catholic university lead-
ers declared independence from the Catholic
hierarchy. It was during the conference that
Dr. Gerard O’Shea of the John Paul II Institute
in Melbourne, Australia, first suggested coor-
dination between Angelicum Academy and
Campion College, and the concept of a college
network rapidly developed from there.
Angelicum intends to network only with
Catholic institutions that have a strong Catho-
lic identity that conforms to Ex corde Ecclesi-
ae, and with certain non-Catholic institutions
that have a clear emphasis on Western civili-
zation in the natural sciences and general ed-
ucation. To avoid any possible confusion for
students seeking a fully Catholic education,
the secular institutions are clearly identified
as such.
Academics
Angelicum’s leaders view their work as part
of an educational reform movement, with
antecedents in the Great Books movement
presided over for nearly a century by the re-
nowned Dr. Mortimer Adler. Carmack and
Dr. Redpath knew him personally and con-
sulted him about the importance of teaching
the Great Books, before his conversion to Ca-
tholicism in 2000 and his death in 2001.
Adler believed that conversation (the
dialectic) aims at wisdom, as opposed to a
monologue (such as a lecture), which tends
to result in indoctrination. In Reforming Edu-
cation, written in the 1940s, Adler said that
Catholic schools were losing their way and
falling into the same traps that had already
ensnared public institutions.
Students who begin their college stud-
ies with the Angelicum Great Books Program
261
Angelicum Great Books Program

start with the ancient Greeks. Throughout
the program, students will be exposed to
and discuss works including Sacred Scrip-
ture, St. Augustine’s Confessions and City of
God, St. Thomas’ Summa Theologiae, Dante’s
Divine Comedy, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales,
Cervantes’ Don Quixote, St. Thomas More’s
Utopia, Cardinal Newman’s Apologia pro vita
sua, Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter, and a short
story by Flannery O’Connor. The program
also includes exposure to Catholic ascetical
and mystical theology, including `a Kempis’
The Imitation of Christ, St. Teresa of Avila’s au-
tobiography, St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night
of the Soul and St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s Story of
a Soul.
The readings are accompanied by more
than 2,300 pages of study guides by Dr.
Robert and Suzanne Alexander—edited by
the acclaimed author Joseph Pearce and by
Thomist philosophers Dr. Redpath, Dr. Curtis
Hancock and Dr. Tom Michaud—to provide
a Catholic understanding and expose their
errors. Carmack estimates that students will

Message from the President

Dear Parents and Prospective Students:

In our day many doors to authentic Catholic education have been closed
or truncated by the pressures of political correctness and the looming “dic-
tatorship of relativism which does not recognize any thing as certain and
which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires”- Pope
Benedict XVI. The possibility of discovering truth, indeed the very exis-
tence of any absolute truth is widely denied. Not in our program!

The purpose of this online Great Books Program is to open a new door via the internet and
distance learning to reveal anew the treasures of reason and truth, Divine revelation and faith,
and the beauty of the sublime heritage of Western culture through the study and online discus-
sion of great books.

As Mortimer Adler noted, “if we are going to have general human schooling in this country,
it has to be accomplished in the first twelve years of compulsory schooling.” To that end we have
developed a new approach to education – offering the collective wisdom of our civilization’s
sages in a great books program with live Socratic discussions conducted from homes scattered
worldwide, via the internet, to students willing to do the reading and thinking necessary to
profit from it, even as young as 14. We have been doing this for 10 years now. Adler was right: it
works, if the student will. If you are 14 or older (9th grade or higher) and do not want to waste
valuable time waiting for college we invite you to join us.

Sincerely,

Patrick S.J. Carmack

262 The Newman Guide


read about 45 minutes a night for four or five
nights a week, depending on the reader.
Although the Angelicum program is on-
line, there is opportunity for interaction. Stu-
dents must complete two hours per week of
online classroom time, in which Great Books
are discussed using the Internet and live
audio communication (allowing speeds as
slow as a dial-up connection). In 2009-10, for
instance, first-year classes are scheduled for
Thursdays, 11:00-1:00 p.m. EST, and Fridays,
3:30-5:30 p.m. EST. Students meet in the on-
line classrooms, may become friends through
e-mail exchanges and sometimes meet at the
end of the academic year or for graduation.
As noted earlier, students who complete
the 48 credit hours with Angelicum can earn
a degree from an accredited college in one-
and-a-half to two-and-a-half years, assuming
the Angelicum credits are accepted. As of Au-
gust 2009 when this edition of The Newman
Guide went to print, there were three colleges
participating in the Universities of Western
Civilization network, thereby guarantee-
ing acceptance of Angelicum credits toward
graduation:
Campion College in Australia: One of
the colleges profiled elsewhere in The New-
man Guide, Campion is faithfully Catholic and
provides a strong liberal arts education. Be-
cause the Campion bachelor’s program is only
three years, students earning 48 credit hours
through Angelicum can attend Campion for
just one-and-a-half years to earn their degree
in liberal arts (the only major at Campion).
Students also have the option of taking on-
line courses for one semester through Catho-
lic Distance University (see below), earning
additional credits accepted by Campion and
requiring just one year of study at the college.
Campion expects that all transferred credits
will be completed before beginning the Cam-
pion portion of study, which requires atten-
dance in Australia.
The Newman Guide
Angelicum Great Books Program
Catholic Distance University: Also pro-
filed in The Newman Guide, CDU offers stu-
dents the option of completing a theology
degree (the only major offered) entirely on-
line. According to its agreement with Ange-
licum, students can earn 48 credits through
the Great Books Program online, complete 42
credit hours (about three semesters) online
with Harrison Middleton University (see be-
low), and complete 36 credit hours (about two
semesters) online with Catholic Distance Uni-
versity. The courses from any institution can
be taken simultaneously or in any order, as
long as specific course prerequisites are met.
Harrison Middleton University: This ac-
credited distance-learning university head-
quartered in Tempe, Arizona, and Chicago
emphasizes study of the liberal arts and the
Great Books, a good fit with the Angelicum
program. It is not, however, a Catholic uni-
versity, although it has a history of working
with Catholic Distance University students to
complete general education requirements. We
have not reviewed HMU’s curriculum and
academic quality; Catholic families should
consider whether other fully Catholic options
in the Universities of Western Civilization
network and The Newman Guide are a better
fit. HMU’s advantage is that it offers a variety
of majors to Angelicum’s students, including
humanities, imaginative literature, natural
science, philosophy, social science and edu-
cation. Students can earn a bachelor’s degree
through HMU with 48 credit hours from An-
gelicum and another 72 credit hours (four to
five semesters) from HMU, taken simulta-
neously or in any order, as long as specific
course prerequisites are met.
The total cost for an undergraduate de-
gree depends on the particular mix of insti-
tutions that a student chooses, but in every
case the options available through the Uni-
versities of Western Civilization network are
inexpensive because of the minimal or zero
263
Angelicum Great Books Program
time spent living on a college campus. An-
gelicum estimates that in addition to its low
fees, the total cost for a degree earned from
Campion College or Catholic Distance Uni-
versity would be about $18,000, not including
room, board and travel costs for Campion.
The cost for a Harrison Middleton University
degree would be about $16,400 in addition to
Angelicum’s fees.
The Bottom Line
Families considering taking advantage of
the Angelicum Great Books Program should
be prepared to do a little extra homework
and study the options and institutions. They
should also carefully consider the cost and
time implications of distance learning and
how to provide for a student’s ongoing per-
sonal and spiritual development outside of a
four-year campus experience.
264
Having done that, many students will
find Angelicum enticing. It offers something
entirely new to Catholic higher education:
worldwide access to a relatively inexpensive,
authentically Catholic, high-quality, liberal
arts program that can be accessed from home
and commenced during high school.
The Angelicum Great Books program
deserves consideration especially by Catholic
students interested in getting an early start
on college-level work while high-school-age,
completing a bachelor’s degree quickly or
over an extended period of time, minimizing
college costs, or experiencing study abroad in
Australia without committing to three addi-
tional years at a traditional college.
The Newman Guide