Graduate school hopes new education program will help with ‘renewal’ of Catholic schooling

Many Catholic schools across the country are increasingly turning to “classical” forms of education, which focuses on liberal arts such as grammar, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy, and other historically celebrated forms of learning. Catholic schools who adopt this model of curriculum do so with an emphasis on Catholic teaching, scriptural study, and abstract yet well-studied concepts such as truth, goodness, and beauty.

A growing number of Catholic institutions have been adopting this style of education: The Diocese of Marquette, Michigan, for instance, became in 2020 “the first [diocese] in the nation to fully move all of its schools to a classical Catholic curriculum.” Schools in Colorado, Washington state, Kentucky, and numerous other states have moved toward this model in recent years as well.

Blum said the new Augustine Institute program was founded with “an…