(Professor Francis Ambrosio exemplifies the interdisciplinary approach to basic questions about life and its meaning.)

At the core of Liberal Studies are the basic questions about who we are as human beings, how we relate to others in the community, and what purposes our lives have.  Folding these questions into the general heading of human values, Liberal Studies seeks answers to these questions from the diverse perspectives of the many disciplines offered at a university setting.  Francis Ambrosio, a professor in the Philosophy Department at Georgetown, has been a longtime  Liberal Studies faculty member.   He has recently joined the ranks of other Georgetown faculty and other prominent scholars whose courses have been made available by The Teaching Company in its “Great Courses” series: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=4610.  The course is a good summary of varied courses offered within Liberal Studies, including his own, that probe in further depth the basic questions about life and its meaning.

Ambrosio combines philosophy and religion, incorporates literature and art, and inserts these disciplines within history to trace high points of Western intellectual thought.  The overarching questions are: What is the meaning of life?  Is human existence meaningful or absurd?  Is it even worth asking this kind of question?  These questions are shared universally by human beings as an essential dynamic of human existence itself.

Even those who are interested in advancing careers and gaining expertise for professional development need to ask, Why bother having a career at all?  Thus, while Liberal Studies students focus on curricular fields, they are interested in more than career training; they focus on how any of these fields give insight into the “why” and “whither” of their careers as well as the “what” and “how.” 

Philosophy, of course, gives one approach to answering these questions, and Ambrosio draws on his academic background to show the diverse answers within his discipline from Socrates to Nietzsche to Jean-Paul Sartre.  Courses within Liberal Studies run the gamut from Plato and other figures within classical civilization to Aquinas and medieval Scholasticism to pragmatists, existentialists, and post-modernists.  Ambrosio shows how religion offers another set of answers, and he casts a wide net in surveying Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a good sample of the array of Liberal Studies courses in these religious traditions.

Art and literature are powerful reflections of the philosophical and religious systems of thought and the ways in which they probe human values.  Ambrosio’s discussion of Michelangelo, Dostoevsky, and Flannery O’Connor mirror the Liberal Studies courses on art of the medieval, Renaissance, and modern worlds, and on classical, Renaissance, American, and modern literature.

All of the ultimate questions about meaning and the intellectual discussions about human existence need to engage the student and interact with real-life experiences.  Ambrosio frames this as the challenge, How should I live my life?  Liberal Studies courses do likewise, challenging students to bring their life experiences to the classroom, to learn from other students, and to apply the academic discourse to their personal lives, careers, and other pursuits.  This engagement leads inevitably to social, political, and economic concerns, so it is no surprise that Ambrosio’s lectures consider people like Darwin, Marx, and Freud, Holocaust survivors Victor Frankl and Elie Wiesel, and Mother Teresa and her life for the poor and impoverished.  It is also no surprise that Liberal Studies looks to the social and political sciences to probe the ethical implications of international and national affairs.

Frank Ambrosio received the 1998 Bunn Award for Faculty Excellence and the 2000 Dean's Award for Teaching. In 2009 he received the Dorothy Brown Award for Outstanding Teaching Achievement, given to the faculty member who has had the strongest impact on students' university experience.   He stands as a sterling example of the quality of those who teach in Liberal Studies and of the talent awaiting candidates for graduate work in the program.