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On March 3, the students and faculty of 91����, California, discussed faith and reason at this semester’s All-College Seminar, a favorite campus event.

A semi-annual event that unites the entire community, the All-College Seminar has become a well-loved 91���� tradition. One Friday evening each semester, groups of about 20 students from all classes — seniors and freshmen, sophomores and juniors — gather in classrooms to read, analyze, and discuss the same text, one that is not part of the College’s ordinary curriculum. Two members of the teaching faculty lead each of the discussions.

This semester, students and faculty read the first nine chapters of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles, which treat “the office of the wise man.” Sections discussed the relationship between faith and reason, the final end of the universe, and Christ’s example to Christians. Upperclassmen shared insights from later in the curriculum, while underclassmen asked big questions that tested the cogency of the upperclassmen’s contributions, keeping their older confreres engaged. “It was a good and spirited seminar,” Tomaso Cammarota (’24) said afterwards. “It made me appreciate how much we learn, both in the content and how to do a Socratic seminar.”

Once the conversations wrapped up, everyone gathered in the St. Joseph Commons to enjoy pizza and each other’s company. Some picked up right where they had left off in the classroom, bringing new insights and new interlocutors into their conversations, many of which lasted late into the night.