Catholic Bioethics
A semester-long course designed to help you learn and articulate the Church’s teachings on modern moral issues
Bioethical questions—those issues that exist at the intersection of science, medicine, morality, and law—affect our daily lives in myriad ways. Faced with a constantly changing landscape of rapid technological developments and shifting ethical norms in our culture, the Church seeks to provide a clear and consistent voice to champion the dignity of the human person in every stage of life. In this course, we will study a broad range of topics in bioethics that touch on contemporary moral questions from conception to death.
This free course will run from May 16 – October 17, 2022. Lectures will take place online on Monday evenings at 8:00 PM ET. Recordings will be made available after each class. Click here to preview the course syllabus.
Registration for this course is now closed.
EXPECTATIONS FOR AUDIT TRACK STUDENTS:
- Weekly participation in the course. Live attendance for the online lecture is highly recommended. For those unable to attend at the scheduled time, a video recording will be available and should be viewed before the next class. Students who fall behind for multiple weeks may be unenrolled to preserve their academic record.
- Completion of the weekly reading assignment is highly recommended. You will be given weekly reading assignments but will not be tested on them.
- Assessments will not be included in the audit track, and you will not receive a certificate of completion. If you would like to receive a certificate and/or have a more in-depth learning experience, please consider applying for the certificate track.
EXPECTATIONS FOR CERTIFICATE TRACK STUDENTS:
- Weekly participation in the course. Live attendance for the online lecture is highly recommended. For those unable to attend at the scheduled time, a video recording will be available and should be viewed before the next class. Students who fall behind for multiple weeks may be unenrolled to preserve their academic record.
- Completion of weekly reading assignments. Content in the reading may be included in assessments.
- Completion of all assessments (usually short, weekly quizzes and one final exam)
- A final grade of 70% or higher must be achieved to receive a certificate. Grades are calculated based on the average from all course assessments. Assessments may be retaken and the highest score of each is used to calculate your final grade.
A note concerning certificates: Certificates of completion can only be issued to individuals. Only the individual name listed on your student profile will be specified on a certificate of completion. The certificate track is not intended for group applications (married couples, families, parish groups, etc). Please apply individually if choosing the certificate track. If you would like to apply as a group, please select the audit track. Alternatively, the members of your group may apply individually to the Certificate Track if they wish to track their own progress through the course and complete the weekly quizzes.