Lander, WY – Catholic liberal arts school Wyoming Catholic College (WCC) has announced plans to update its Humanities curriculum track with the introduction of intensive J.R.R Tolkien studies. “Why we never had them in the first place is one of the biggest scandals of our school’s existence,” school dean Professor Cleanut told IIT today.
“More than Homer, Plato, ‘ma boi Augustine’, or even St. Thomas Aquinas, J.R.R. Tolkien is the foundational author of our curriculum,” said Cleanut. “The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings are more than just the best literature ever written but also provide the philosophical and theological insights that these lesser authors may have imperfectly precollected.”
For some reason WCC never had Tolkien in its curriciulum, but that will be “immediately remedied in the coming year,” the dean added. “Unfortunately we’re dropping Homer to make room for a full semester of study of Tolkien’s Silmarillion freshman year and Dante for a study of the Lord of the Rings instead. But since even two semesters is barely enough to even begin to study the richness of Tolkien, we’re making him the default Junior author choice unless special permission is granted for another author.”
Most students are open to the change as “reading Tolkien was practically a prerequisite already at WCC”. As one junior says, “our class discussions practically always brought him up already” so it’s “just formalizing what’s already been the case for a while.”
More details are still yet to be determined as the professors work out syllabi for the new courses but the modified formula will be enacted from Fall 2020