Undergraduate Events

CHRISTIAN STUDIES Fellows Program

Beatrice Institute's Christian Studies Fellows Program offers undergraduate students of any year, belief, or major the opportunity to study the Christian intellectual, historical, and cultural tradition in community.

FEATURES

• Bi-weekly dinner and seminar led by faculty focusing on a short excerpt of a classic text

• Access to a wide range of cultural excursions diving deeper into arts, ideas, and volunteering in the Pittsburgh community

• $250 stipend upon completing the semester's seminars and two excursions

• Access to a faculty mentor who can help integrate Christian studies with your academic and professional interests

All students, regardless of year, religious affiliation, or major are encouraged to apply.

Apply now!

SPRING 2024 Seminars

Now accepting applications for all four seminars: Body & Soul, Formative Christian Ideas, Happiness and the Good Life, and Created for Community.

Body & Soul

This seminar series investigates Christian understandings of human beings and their place in the world. 

Topics include:

• Creation and the Fall

• Ensoulment and embodiment

• The human being as worker and creator

• Our relationships to our own bodies and each other's bodies

• The body politic and the Mystical Body of Christ

• And more . . .

Formative Christian Ideas

This seminar series looks at the great clash of ideas in the early Church that led to the doctrinal councils of Nicaea, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. 

Topics include:

• The unknowability of God

• The paradox of the Trinity

• God as Father and Christ as Son

• The Holy Spirit

• The natures of the God-Man and early Christological conflicts

• And more . . .

Happiness and the Good Life

This seminar series asks the question: How have Christian traditions understood the principles and conditions for happiness and the good life?

Topics include:

• Teleology and the end of human action

• Narrative lives and the quest for meaning

• Ethics and the good life

• What is distinctive about Christian ethics?

• Are pagan ethics noble vices?

• Reading the Bible ethically

• Friendship and happiness

• And more . . .

Created for Community

This seminar series explores the responsibilities of community life, the foundations of Christian political thought, and the social dimensions of Christian anthropology.

Topics include:

• Can Christians build Utopia?

• Is social media even social?

• Is community an imperative for followers of Christ?

• Does autonomy exist?

• What is the common good?

• And more . . .