Director's Welcome

I am very pleased to see this department become a dynamic, popular and rigorous major on campus. A recent external evaluation for accreditation reported:

This department is a powerhouse of liberal arts education, and ought to be the centerpiece of any comprehensive account of Concordia's success.

This, I believe, can be attributed to our outstanding faculty and the rigor with which they attend to their professional research, class preparation and extensive time spent with students. We are also commonly committed to providing an education that fits with the university's core curriculum and is explicit in being classical, Christian, and conservative. That is- while new fads come and go- we stick to the rigorous basics of an education in the human experience. All of our questions revolve around the essential human questions of "what should I believe?", "how should I be governed?", and "what is the nature of social equality?"

You may notice that we do not have the now common name "political science," but rather "political thought"; that is because, in the classical tradition, we see politics as encompassing all of life. We also recognize that those who want to go on to a law school are best served (in our opinion and that of most law schools) by a broad introduction to historical and political foundations, whereas the law schools themselves teach the vocational and practical (the "scientific" aspects of the legal system).

As this department continues to grow, I invite you to check in to see where we are headed (both in terms of courses offered as well as scheduled trips abroad with professors from the department). If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at daniel.vanvoorhis@cui.edu or call me at (949) 214-3322.

Best,
Daniel van Voorhis, PhD