Bachelor of Arts in Law, Politics, and Society

at St. Thomas University Canada

Founded by Irish Diocesan priests in the early part of the 20th century, in Chatham, New Brunswick, St. Thomas University has had a long standing spiritual, intellectual and emotional connection with a vital, unique and living Irish cultural tradition. Settled by pre- Famine Irish, the province of New Brunswick boasts one of the oldest indigenous Irish populations in North America. Furthermore, only the province of Quebec accepted more Irish Famine refugees during the Great Hunger of the 1840’s, when over 30 000 immigrants passed through the ports of Saint John, Saint Andrews and the Miramichi.

Today, St. Thomas University both acknowledges and honours the sacrifice and contribution of these early Irish migrants through many of its university programmes; not least among these are: Catholic Studies, Human Rights, Religious Studies, Social Work, Education, English, Criminology, History, Philosophy and Political Science. Most of these programmes highlight the social justice concerns of the Catholic Church and the legacy of Irish priests, nuns and laypeople who historically made up the faculty, administration, student body, and alumni of St. Thomas. The Irish Studies Programme seeks to complement the concerns of these programmes while, at the same time, it acknowledges the voices, past and present, of the Irish who first sought to bring this education to their own displaced people as well as to the citizens of the wider world.
The Irish Studies Programme is an interdisciplinary liberal arts programme. It is designed to provide students with the opportunity to explore the heritage, culture, history, religion, politics, literature, fine art, and film of both the people of Ireland, and the communities of its Diaspora.

The Catholic Studies Program is an academically rigorous and interdisciplinary exploration of Catholicism. Courses engage with the Catholic intellectual tradition—the 2000 year-long dialogue between and within faith and culture. We approach the texts of the Catholic intellectual tradition with a view toward understanding the role that Catholicism has played in the human search for meaning and in the conviction that thinking is a critical part of belief. 

Discovering catholic studies
Catholic Studies enthusiastically welcomes students from any or no faith tradition. The program is dedicated to a critical and scholarly engagement with Catholicism, and is dispositionally nondogmatic. Courses are especially attentive to the ways in which the Catholic intellectual tradition can help students understand issues of social and economic justice and peace.

You are therefore given the freedom to explore perennial human questions and pressing contemporary concerns in a way that is open to the potential contributions of faith. You are also given the chance to study the Catholic Church itself, as a cultural and political, as well as a religious institution. You will also benefit from co- and extra-curricular events, service opportunities, scholarly activities, and community outreach sponsored by the St. John XXIII Centre for Catholic Studies.

You might be interested in catholic studies if you ...

• You are interested in a challenging, interdisciplinary major which explores the meaning of Christian faith
• You are interested in exploring human questions and contemporary concerns as potential contributions to faith

Critical and transferable skills
Students in Catholic Studies benefit from an interdisciplinary course of study which draws from many different academic disciplines. The interdisciplinary character of the program helps students become well-rounded thinkers, able to analyze problems and phenomena from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and using diverse analytical tools. The program’s emphasis on the Catholic intellectual tradition will help students develop the skills of thoughtful reading, clear writing, and verbal eloquence.

Explore Spanish culture and study literature and media to develop skills in oral communication, grammar, and composition.

Discovering Spanish and Latin American studies
Spanish is one of the world's most common languages. It is the first language of Spain, Mexico, most of South America and a large part of the population of the United States and the Caribbean. It is becoming an increasingly important language in global trade and commerce.

The Romance Language Department offers both majors and honours programs in Spanish, as well as DELE in Spanish. The department is comprised of dynamic and devoted faculty responsible for delivering an ambitious program. Due to its association with Hispanic worlds, all having immeasurable intellectual and artistic impacts on the development of Western culture and humanism, the Romance Languages Department has a pivotal role to play in a liberal arts curriculum.

An introductory course for beginners leads to advanced courses in grammar, conversation and composition, translation, and Spanish and Latin American literature.

You might be interested in studying Spanish and Latin American studies if...

• You want to increase your language proficiency or become bilingual
• You want to learn about another culture
• You want to become a global citizen

The Law, Politics, and Society (LAPS) Program is a systematic but flexible interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between law, political life, and Canadian society. It examines the nature of law and its influence on Canadians and their polity and explores how law is made and changed, and what forces shape it.

Students learn about the institutional character of law making and enforcement and also the social factors that shape and are shaped by law.

Given the growing centrality of law in Canadian society, attention is increasingly being paid to the nature and composition of the bar and bench, and the politics of judicial appointment increasingly make the front page.

Law, Politics, and Society is an interdisciplinary program, but is also a fine complement to studies in Human Rights, Political Science, Criminology, or Sociology.

You might be interested in studying law, politics, and society if...

• You want to learn about the way law works in advanced democracies
• You want to explore the influence of law on Canadian society
• You want to learn more about the types of law in Canada, the judicial system, or the legal profession

Critical and transferable skills
It is important not simply to know that Canada is a law-based polity; it is important also to know who makes and interprets that law and to know how the law affects citizens. In this program, you will learn about how law is made and changed, how it interacts with social forces like ethnicity, gender, and economic inequality, and how social and political change leaves its marks on laws and legal processes.

You will learn about the philosophical and institutional foundation of law and courts and become familiar with the factors that influence judicial outcomes—why judges decide cases the way they do. You will also develop a familiarity with how personal conditions and characteristics may bring someone into contact with the law.

Our School of Education takes a cross-disciplinary approach to teaching and learning, while emphasizing inclusionary teaching approaches. We offer concentrations in elementary (K-5), secondary (6-12), or French second-language teaching through cooperative learning and teamwork, along with practical teaching techniques.

Our 11-month program includes two field placements in different schools and at different grade levels offer opportunities to put theory into practice and will prepare you for a rewarding career in education. 

Anthropology is unique in being a hands-on field of study. Anthropology can be done wherever people are, and wherever people were. As a student of Anthropology at St. Thomas, you can expect to get out there in the real world, interacting with people in a variety of social contexts, excavating artifacts, and analyzing bones in our anthropology laboratory.

Discovering Anthropology
Cultural anthropologists, social anthropologists, and linguists typically spend years living with particular groups of people, participating in their everyday lives. This process of long-term, small-scale, intensive and detailed study allows them to understand some of the most fundamental aspects of human existence which only reveal themselves in this way. Archaeologists also conduct long-term fieldwork examining human material culture, excavating, documenting, and analyzing artifacts as a means of answering the same questions about human existence. Physical anthropologists study human skeletal remains not only to understand our physical past and development, but also in modern-day criminal forensic investigations.

You might be interested in Studying Anthropology if...

• You’re a global thinker that’s interested in language, society, geography, and music 
• You’re interested in people and curious about different cultures 
• You want to understand yourself and your culture better

Critical and Transferable Skills
Living and working in today’s world increasingly means interacting with people from many different cultural backgrounds. The skills developed through completing a degree in Anthropology enables graduates to become critical thinkers and effective communicators who are able to generate relevant information and make informed decisions.

According to the American Anthropological Association, anthropological training concentrates on three transferable skill areas: “understanding human diversity, building research skills for collecting and making sense of information, and communicating effectively.”

Courses offered in the Japanese language focus on learning fundamental language structure and practicing communication skills. In the courses, reading and writing Hiragana and Katakana are essential, and some Kanji are introduced and practiced. Japan and Japanese culture are introduced and discussed.

Advanced courses develop the communicative skills necessary for everyday situations - focusing on conversation and writing systems, expanding vocabulary and sentence structures and teaching students to express themselves on a wide range of topics from daily life.

As students complete the beginner’s level of Japanese, they are prepared for the Level IV Japanese Proficiency Test offered by the Government of Japan.

International Relations challenges students to broaden their perspectives and their understanding of the forces shaping global politics. Students who major in International Relations will complete course work in specific international themed courses while focusing on one or two particular areas of the world.

Students participate in a for-credit Model United Nations course that has taken many to international competitions such as the Harvard and New York City events. International Relations students are also encouraged to study Economics as well as a foreign language to develop an appropriate base of knowledge and skill that relate directly to different areas of the world.

You might be interested in studying international relations if...

• You are interested in the politics and cultures of other countries in the world 
• You want to understand other people and other perspectives

Critical and transferable skills
The skills a student learns by studying International Relations include the ability to understand and summarize complex information and gathering evidence to make good, critical arguments. Graduates from the program must learn to write clearly and directly. They are also required to gain proficiency in a foreign language and to gain a basic understanding of economics, which are both invaluable skills in today’s world. Studying International Relations also provides students with a wider perspective on and understanding of the complex global environment.

Religious Studies starts with a thematic introduction to some of the perennial questions that continue to arise in human existence. There are choices between courses that emphasize big question perspectives, particular social issues and projects, specific disciplinary approaches, and courses that examine in greater detail specifics of particular religious traditions, including texts, rituals, ideas, and political and historical overviews.

Religious Studies is a multi-disciplinary study. Students are exposed to a variety of approaches, as well as to serious reflections on the nature of methodology and scholarly inquiry. We believe an adequate understanding of religion is an asset in recognizing and responding appropriately to the many complex issues that face contemporary society. A sufficiently critical sensibility ensures thoughtful responses, rather than emotive and unthinking reactions.

You might be interested in studying religious studies if...

• You want to examine how the different aspects of religion shape politics, the arts, social movements, sexualities, and the environment
• You want to learn more about world religions and their similarities and differences

Critical and transferable skills
Religious Studies requires an ability to recognize and identify the particular disciplines utilized in any given study. Being familiar with the social sciences, literature, philosophy, history, and linguistic/language studies, aspects of the physical and natural sciences become part of the student’s worldview. Critical skills include self-reflection, inasmuch as everyone has a vested interest in being able to make reasonable and coherent choices in life. The dynamic nature of critical inquiry indicates the life-long project of learning and developing for which the study of religion equips students.

Gerontology is the study of the changes that take place in the process of aging, how society defines aging, and how individuals understand their own later years.

At one time, talks of aging prompted images of failing health, isolation, and lack of purpose. Today, people are living longer, healthier, and more productive lives. Studying Gerontology at St. Thomas, you will explore the impact of the way society defines aging and how individuals actually experience and understand their own later years.

St. Thomas is also home to The Third Age Centre, an autonomous, community-based, non-profit organization to empower older adults to maintain healthy, independent, active lifestyles. The centre conducts research and public education on issues of particular concern to older adults. We are also affiliated with the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Narrative. Students are often invited to be involved in projects undertaken by these centres.

You might be interested in studying gerontology if...

• You want to understand the process of aging from sociological, psychological, physical, and spiritual perspectives
• You want to learn more about the issues that concern older people

Critical and transferable skills
The study of Gerontology will give you academic skills, as well as self-care and self-exploration strategies. You will learn how to conduct interviews with older adults. You will learn how to design recreation and educational programs for older adults. You will learn critical thinking as you explore controversial and ethical issues in long-term care, end of life, work life, as well as images in the media and popular culture.