At Belmont Abbey College, students quickly discover that we seek to educate
the whole person, to strike a crucial balance between the specialized knowledge
required of a specific discipline, and the broad education we expect of all our
graduates. Classes are taught by seasoned professors, with more than 80 percent
of the faculty holding doctoral degrees from institutions that include Marquette,
Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Chicago, Rutgers, Boston College, UNC Chapel-Hill, and
the University of Virginia. Classes themselves generally range from 10 to 20
students, making it easy to jump into the dialogue, voice opinions, ask difficult
questions, and get direct answers.
The Abbey curriculum is divided equally between core requirements and major
courses. Our core curriculum, rooted in the liberal arts tradition, gives all
students the intellectual skills and moral discernment needed for success in
all professions and, more importantly, in living the good life in the best and
deepest sense of the word. The core curriculum culminates in a course in Ethics
and one course in the "Great Books," which challenge students to apply
the insights they have acquired in their college career to some of the perennial
issues faced by the great minds of the past.
Each major provides a broad introduction to the student’s chosen field
of study, which prepares students either for graduate studies or for a career,
with the flexibility to adapt to rapid change and to continue a lifetime of learning.
To academically gifted students of any major, the Honors Program offers especially
challenging intellectual work and research together with opportunities to attend
a variety of cultural events in and near Charlotte.
