Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults

The Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults was founded at the University of Chicago in 1946, in the wake of Robert Hutchins and Mortimer Adler's Great Books work, and is now run by the university's Graham School. It is a four-year, non-credit certificate program for adults with no prerequisites, tests, papers, or grades. Students progress as a cohort, taking one ten-week course in each of the Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters. Each course pairs a ninety-minute Seminar, which covers three to five texts, with a ninety-minute Tutorial devoted to the close reading of one or two texts, taught by different instructors and conducted by Socratic discussion. The core sequence below follows the four-year curriculum overview published by the Graham School; seminar and tutorial readings are marked in the notes.