Symposium Series
An intercollegiate community of students and faculty from the Philadelphia area who convene to explore the full promise of the liberal arts.
The Symposium Series (formerly known as Paideia Colloquia) is a humanistic community of students and faculty from the Collegium Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, the Villanova Humanities Department, and the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University.
We convene monthly for dinner seminars at each university and cultural excursions in the Philadelphia area – together, we explore the full promise of the liberal arts. Over the years, we’ve examined different questions and topics, including How Can the Humanities Humanize Us?, Enchantment and Disenchantment in the Modern World, What Does it Mean To Be a Humanist?, and most recently, Friendship and the Common Good. After a brief hiatus throughout 2020–2021, the program began again in the 2022–23 academic year.
Living the Humanities
An evening conversation with Zena Hitz of St. John’s College
The Work of Poetry
An evening conversation with poet, James Matthew Wilson.
What Students Are Saying:
“The Paideia Seminar encourages curiosity, conviviality, and kindness. The program provides me with a fruitful outlet in which I nurture intellectual desire as I encounter special individuals, in unique spaces, who provoke and inspire.“
— Ethan, Villanova University
“The Paideia Seminar was a wonderful opportunity for me to explore the art of living with students of various perspectives, backgrounds, and interests. In the Paideia Seminar, we not only reasoned about the role of the humanities, but we enjoyed music, language, and good food together. By pairing intellectually-rigorous discussions with the arts and fellowship, we learned both the theory and practice of becoming more fully human.”
— Abigail , Eastern University
“I loved Paideia Seminar because it offered me the unique opportunity to step beyond my education and interrogate it. The discussions we had and ideas we brought to the table caused me to think deeply about not just what I’ve been learning in college, but what the whole point of an education is (or should be) in the first place and what its significance — and duty — is in the bigger scheme of things. This chance to really examine what I want from an education and how I think education should be implemented and understood in order to make the most meaningful impact has been incredibly special for me. It is so important that we ask these questions of ourselves and figure out where we stand on them.”
-Emily, University of Pennsylvania