Seminar Enrichment Series

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Explore questions both timely and timeless.

Each semester, a stimulating lineup of live performances, films, interactive workshops, and talks by Saint Mary’s faculty, visiting scholars, and guest artists enriches the Seminar experience.

Designed to deepen the encounter with texts from a wide range of eras and cultures, Enrichment Series programs foster the skills of inclusive conversation, build habits of life-long learning, and illuminate the world we live in.  

Spring 2025 links

Seminar Enrichment Series programs are open to the public and (except where noted) are free. Most events this semester require no advance registration or special access, with the following exceptions:

Kristi Clemens
Zoom link coming soon

Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces

Risking Difficult Dialogues

With Suzy Thomas & Dana Herrera
 

Friday, February 14 at 1:30 pm
Thursday, February 20 at 7:00 pm
 

Learn how community agreements promote authentic discussion and critical dialogue about challenging Seminar texts. Exploring the notion of “brave spaces” [from Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces, by Arao & Clemens], the presenters offer tools for creating classrooms in which students and teachers grow together in the context of diversity-focused, social justice education. 

John Proctor is the Villain
Ticket link coming soon

John Proctor is the Villain

Thursday, April 24 - Sunday, April 27
 

LeFevre Theatre
 

Opening on Broadway just weeks before the Saint Mary’s production, this “bitingly funny” new play flips the script on an American classic. As a small-town English class studies The Crucible amid the usual distractions of high school, the students begin to question the play’s perspective, especially whether John Proctor is the “good man” they’ve been taught he is. This sharp comedy captures “a generation mid-transformation… discovering that their future is not bound by the past.”

 

Ticket discount for Seminar students, with prepay.  

dancers in white flowy dresses with a yellow glow in the background
Ticket link coming soon

Soaring

Thursday, May 8 - Saturday, May 10 
 

LeFevre Theatre
 

After attending Dana Lawton's Close Looking at Dance program in the Delphine Intercultural Center on May 8, head over to LeFevre Theatre to enjoy the spring dance concert. 

 

Ticket discount for Seminar students, with prepay.

Students in Clayes clapping at a staged reading of Angels in America

Mission statement

The Enrichment Series aims to kindle a love of intellectual exploration, to encourage students and faculty to pursue interests outside their home disciplines, and to cultivate the habits of life-long learning  -- all in order to better illuminate the world in which we live. Through lectures, colloquia, performances, films, and workshops the Enrichment Series creates opportunities for Saint Mary’s faculty, visiting scholars and guest artists to share their disciplinary expertise, and fosters interdepartmental collaborations and co-sponsorships. 

Enrichment Series programming is intentionally flexible, complementing the stability of the formal curriculum and the pedagogy of the Seminar classroom. Each semester, a rotating series of events enriches and expands students’ Seminar experience and introduces genre-specific reading strategies, while also supporting faculty formation as Seminar leaders. Enrichment Series programs often explore questions raised by particular Seminar texts or situate those works within their historical and cultural contexts. But they may also highlight thematic links bridging the four-semester Seminar sequence, respond to campus initiatives and concerns, or engage with works of art, scientific practice, or personal testimonies.

Students in Claeys Lounge watching a presentation and writing

Learning goals

Enrichment Series events are designed to support the learning outcomes of the Seminar Program, and for this reason may be incorporated directly by Seminar faculty into the design and delivery of their own Seminars. SES programs supplement classroom learning by helping students further develop specific abilities, including:

  • to approach texts from the perspective of different disciplines, using strategies appropriate to specific genres; 
  • to build the habits of life-long learning, including curiosity and a tolerance for ambiguity, provocation, and controversy in the pursuit of deeper insights;
  • to learn to disagree with civility, and to distinguish impact from intent, in the context of reasoned discussion; 
  • to understand how texts are situated within specific historical and cultural contexts;
  • to encounter the intellectual perspectives and artistic achievements of marginalized voices; 
  • to see how texts address and respond to each other, within and across traditions and eras;
  • to discover how texts speak to our own concerns and lived experiences, and how they illuminate the world we inhabit.
Students in the museum of art

By providing occasions for all members of the Saint Mary’s community to gather and discuss questions and interrogate ideas across disciplines, the Collegiate Seminar Enrichment Series cultivates the kind of inclusive and collegial conversation that is essential to liberal education.

Contact

Connor McCaslin, Coordinator

crm20@stmarys-ca.edu

925-631-5032