Torrey Honors Institute is a Christian great books program at Biola University in California. It is named after Reuben Archer Torrey.[1] Classes in the department are used to meet most of the general education requirements at Biola University in four years (the program does not offer a major or minor). The goal of the department is to "equip men and women to pursue truth, goodness and beauty in intellectual and spiritual community, enabling them to be strong Christian leaders"[2]
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The Torrey Honors Institute is patterned after Oxford's tutorial system, employing reading, discussion, writing, mentoring, and lectures among other opportunities.[3]
The Institute is broken up into two houses: Morgan house (named after G. Campbell Morgan) and Johnson house (named after Phillip E. Johnson). Each house has different majors. The sciences and music are generally placed in Johnson house while the humanities are usually placed in Morgan house. The two houses vary in how many units are taken each semester along with the curriculum. Morgan house is based on a chronological system while Johnson house is built around a thematic semester system.
In each house each class is broken up into cohort groups known as "Torrey Groups". These range from 8-16 people and idealistically stay in the same group for all four years of Torrey. Groups are typically named after famous authors such as Lewis, Dante, and Ignatius.
Each student has one Torrey facualty member mentor who does not change for all four years. Students must meet with their mentors four times a semester.
Each Torrey group meets for three hours a session depending upon how many units their semester is. Torrey comes in blocks of four units all the way up to twelve.
Each session is led by a different mentor, called a "Torrey Tutor" in session. The students do not know who they will have on any given day until they arrive for class. This is to prevent biases on how to read books. The class session begins with the tutor asking what is termed an "opening question" and the group discusses for three hours using text and ideas. At the end of the session the tutor asks a "Pull Question" which the students are to write out and answer in an essay format.
The Torrey Honors Institute was started by Dr. John Mark Reynolds in 1995.[4]