Humanities for Leadership Studies, BAHL

The Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Leadership (BAHL) is a four-year, comprehensive, pre-professional, interdisciplinary degree that examines the intellectual, personal, and spiritual formation of men and women across ages and cultures.  Students gain the analytic, practical, and academic skills necessary for effective, ethical leadership and bring those skills to bear in classrooms and campus organizations.

The BAHL grows organically and methodologically from the core values of Seattle University’s Catholic and Jesuit mission.  Ethical, efficacious and culturally competent describe the graduate of this degree. Following are its characteristic components:

• Interdisciplinary in Its Approach to Leadership: The degree is explicitly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intellectual development of the individual. It builds on the College’s 35-year history as an interdisciplinary, sequentially paced Humanities degree with a focus on what constitutes effective, ethical leadership.

• Integrated Global Jesuit Education Coupled with Technological Literacy:  The degree embraces a focus both local and global, and includes formative experiences of learning and service in both arenas, including connectedness through technology as a door to distant friendship, to international discussions, to quick access to facts and to different minds and perspectives.

• Rooted in History and Modern in its Vision and Methods:  The degree offers an education in the Humanities anchored by its Jesuit tradition and poised to recognize new needs, new resources, new imperatives, and new opportunities of helping, especially the poor and marginalized.

• Discernment as a Way of Life: Discernment is essential for the capacity to grow as persons by learning how to make choices that lead to greater recognition of the dignity of every human person.  In effect, the practice of discernment is what is meant by leadership, namely, the ability to distinguish carefully in every act and decision the interior movements of attraction and repulsion, or consolation and desolation, in order to make choices that lead to a deeper sense of personal freedom, human authenticity, and global responsibility.

Structure and Admission Criteria

The Bachelor of Arts in Humanities for Leadership (BAHL) degree is a “cohort program”; that is, students are admitted to the program as freshmen by the normal process administered through the Seattle University Office of Admissions.  Thereafter, students follow a prescribed sequence of required courses with complimentary study in an area of specialization of their choosing.  In addition to coursework, students are expected to complete an internship in a local organization as well as to participate in an international internship placement.

Program Requirements

Students are expected to make normal progress toward completing the required courses in sequence. They must always maintain a cumulative academic grade point average of 2.50 or higher. In order to earn the BAHL degree, students must complete 180 quarter credits as described below and maintain a cumulative academic grade point average of 2.50 or higher.  Students failing to meet these expectations will be placed on probation for two quarters and thereafter are subject to dismissal from the College.  Additionally, students are expected to make normal progress toward completing the required courses in sequence as the BAHL degree curriculum builds on knowledge and skill development over the four years. 

Each student is closely advised by a Matteo Ricci College faculty adviser conversant in Humanities, the field of leadership and the degree requirements.  No student may register for any Seattle University course without consulting and receiving written permission from the adviser or the dean’s designee.  Students are encouraged to seek additional informal advice from faculty in their chosen Area of Specialization. 

In the second year of the program, students will participate in a year-long internship at a local organization.   The adviser will assist students to identify placements according to their interests and Area of Specialization.

In the 4th year of the program, students participate in quarter-long (15 credit) national or international leadership internships with businesses or non-profit organizations. The College will identify internship placements.  Student safety is paramount, and for this reason, the College vets potential placements and students develop in-depth knowledge about their placement settings before travel.

Students will only be allowed to participate in the international leadership internship program if they demonstrate language competency for the country in which they wish to work. Students who fail to demonstrate language competency, or who for reasons other than language choose not to work abroad, will complete an internship within the US.

Note: Only courses graded C- (1.7) or higher will fulfill the HUMT requirements scheduled for all 100-level courses. Only those graded C (2.0) or higher will be accepted in fulfillment of all other Humanities courses.