Student Achievement Goals and Student Success

Saint Joseph Seminary College (SJSC) identifies student achievement with respect to the institutional mission, including (1) consideration of degree completion, (2) acceptance into graduate seminaries according to the criteria outlined in the Program of Priestly Formation (PPF) of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and (3) by achievement of the outcomes of the degree program in philosophy.

Because seminary education includes not only academic studies but also formation for the priesthood, a student’s individual decision to leave Saint Joseph Seminary is more often a marker of success rather than an indication of failure. All students are encouraged through the formation process to discern whether or not the life of a priest is their true calling, and those who determine early that this is not the case have successfully completed this discernment process. Their academic credits may be transferred to another college or university and applied to their next course of study.

The first goal of student achievement identified by SJSC is consideration of our 6-year IPEDS graduate rate as compared to all other free-standing Benedictine college seminaries in the United States. The Administration of SJSC chose to benchmark itself with all other free-standing Benedictine college seminaries in the US, because, given the uniqueness of our mission, we determined that only those institutions were similar enough in size, curriculum, governance, and mission to provide us with relevant metrics to gauge our success in graduation rates. In the Chart titled Seminary College Graduation Rate Comparison, three colleges will be listed: Saint Joseph Seminary College, Conception Seminary College in Missouri, and Mount Angel Seminary College in Oregon. The average 6-year graduation rate across all three institutions is 47%. This is the benchmark for success that SJSC has established for this metric. The attached chart will show that SJSC's most recent 6-year graduation rate is 63%, successfully exceeding the benchmark of 47%.

Graduation Rate Comparison Chart

The second goal of student achievement identified by SJSC is the rate of acceptance of our graduates into graduate level theology programs. As specified by the PPF, when a seminarian completes an undergraduate college seminary program in philosophy, he may apply to a graduate level theological seminary. One of SJSC's goals of student achievement is the rate at which our graduates who apply to graduate level theological seminaries are accepted by those seminaries. For years now, 100% of all our graduates who apply to theological programs are accepted by those programs.

The third goal of student achievement is related to the second in that it gauges whether graduates are academically prepared to apply to a theologate and prepared to succeed in that theologate. This is the goal that the program outcomes for SJSC's two degree programs seek to measure. The outcomes are the same for each program in that the principal subject matter for both is the study of philosophy as specified by the PPF . The outcomes are: (1) the ability to write a critical research paper in philosophy, (2) the ability to critically engage the ideas of a philosopher, and (3) evidence that the student has an increased knowledge of the Western philosophical tradition. SJSC is justified in using our program outcomes as student achievement goals because each student here must demonstrate satisfactory mastery of these outcomes in order to graduate.

Philosophy Program Assessment Plan for 2021 to 2022

Click here to see our retention, graduation, and transfer out rates.