Torrey: A Quick Explanation

Torrey: The mysterious honors institute at Biola University. The description is vague: “A great books program” but how does it function? How does it take care of almost all your general education? Alot of students that are looking at Torrey have been looking at my blog, so I thought I’d give them, and really anyone, a little look into how the program works. There really is no good place to start defining Torrey, so I’ll just jump right in.

Academic Credit: Torrey takes care of most of a student’s general ed. Just about everything is covered except PE, Math, and Science. Some majors still require you to take psych outside of Torrey, but for the most part the Torrey student is covered. Torrey covers 60  units of general ed. Torrey classes come in increments of 4 (one Torrey section is equal to 4 units).

The two houses: Depending on your major, you will either go into Morgan house or Johnson house. Morgan house reads books chronologically and is front loaded (meaning you take your Torrey classes in your first two years and then it goes down). The schedule for a Morgan houser would be 8 units fall fresh, 12 units spring fresh, 12 units fall soph, 12 units spring soph, and then 4 units for the next four semester. Johnson house reads thematically (all the books they read fit a specific theme. I’m not in that house, so I don’t know much about it). Johnson house students have 8 units every semester until their fourth year fall, where it drops down to 4 units.

The classes: Now that the technical stuff is taken care of, the beginning of the real Torrey experience can be explained. For each class there are a number of different groups (I’m the Torrey class of 2013) made up of about 17 people. For example, my group is Ignatius after Ignatius of Antioch. Each group is in one house (Morgan or Johnson) and the group ideally stays together all four years, taking 60 units together. For every 4 units a group meets once a week for 3 hours. The class makes a circle with desks and is led by a Torrey Tutor (more on those later) in discussion (though even that isn’t always true. Ideally they want the students to be able to lead themselves, but they are always there to ensure they have good discussion). For each class there is assigned reading. For example, our first Torrey session was on The Iliad. Each person had to read the entire book and take notes. That’s probably the most time consuming and sometimes the most stressful parts of Torrey (some nights you may have to read a few hundred pages in a heavy book). But have no fear! Before I was a Torrey student I didn’t read for leisure, yet I am doing well and learning to enjoy reading.  So even if you think you read slowly or don’t like to read, don’t think that you can’t do Torrey. It teaches you a lot. Also, keep in mind that staying up late with friends creates GREAT memories, or even with God. I wouldn’t trade them for anything, even if they are difficult.

Classes may start with some type of devotion, worship, or prayer, whatever the group feels like. My group does devotions and prayer requests, which have proven to be really helpful and it keeps us informed about each other’s lives. Once those are done the tutor usually asks an”Opening Question” or has us do some sort of study project. For example, our first session ever (which obviously wasn’t very good because we had no idea what we were doing) was about defining terms in the Iliad like honor, justice, etc. The class lasts three hours and we discussed things like “why was it wrong for Agamemnon to take away Achilles’ girl?” Oh, yah, a hint, think about the terms that were defined earlier. I don’t want to give it away in case someone stumbles across this and finds the answer right away. That wouldn’t be any fun. The class experience is just a huge discussion where people chime in any time, focusing on what the text and the author are trying to say, not bringing in their own opinions but being true to the author.During this time people will use their required preclass notes and take their in class notes (which are required unless otherwise directed, but then again, nothing in Torrey is set in stone).

At the end of the class the tutor gives something called a “Pull Question”. This question usually has something to do with what was discussed, or it can be completely random, like go watch a movie. For our Iliad session one of our Pull Questions was “How does conflict move the story along?” After class you have to write a short essay to answer the question. My professor (called a mentor) requires me to write a 300 word response.

So that’s about it for the class part, but that’s only the beginning.

Torrey Faculty: The Torrey Honors Institute is made up of some of the most brilliant and amazing people I have ever met. Doctorates, Ph.D’s, you name it we got it. Each student has one faculty that is their ‘mentor’ for the entire time they are in Torrey. The Torrey student has to make office hours with them multiple times a semester, including once for their ‘midterms’ and once for their ‘final’ (those aren’t the terms we use, but I’ll explain those later). I have Mrs. Dr. Thoennes as my mentor (her husband is a big Bible prof at Biola so I have to make the distinction). She’s pretty much the best and she’s like a mom to her mentees. She has some in every year (fresh, soph, jr, sr) and we all love her. These are the faculty member that lead sessions, where they take on the title “Torrey Tutor”. Occasionally there are adjuncts that lead sessions (professors, Torrey alumn, ect), but for the main part it’s the Torrey Faculty. You aren’t told who you have each session and it’s always someone different. Occasionally you get Dr. Reynolds in what’s called a “Reynolds Session” which are unique from different sessions.

Context Lectures: For every unit of Torrey that you take you have to go to a context lecture. A context lecture is just a lecture at night that usually pertains to a book that some group is reading in Torrey (like the Morgan Freshmen for example, which would be about 60 people, though anyone can come). So let’s say you have 8 units of Torrey. That means that you have to go to 8 context lectures that semester. Simple.

‘Finals’, ‘Midterms’, and the Torrey Notebook: So to clear things up, Midterms are called Midrags and Finals are called Don Rags. During these times you are orally tested to see if you can discuss ideas that you have covered, your mentor looks at the scores you are getting in sessions (each session the tutor gives you a score between 1 and 5 based on how well you are facilitating the discussion, not necessarily how much you talk), your completed Pull Questions, paper proposal (more about that later), and your Torrey Notebook. The Torrey notebook is a spiral binder (or whatever you use to keep everything together) that has your preclass and in class notes along with your Pull Questions in some kind of organized manner. I use dividers for each book and then color code them for pre class and in class notes and then make Pull Questions different, but everyone’s Torrey notebook should be different. I also keep my list of lectures in here (notes in them are optional, but I take them).  They also make sure that you did background stuff for your book, read all your books on time, took notes on time, and basically did your work. During Don Rags two Torrey Faculty members are with you, one talking to you and another checking your notebook.

The Torrey Paper: Each semester each Torrey student writes a paper using Torrey texts to write about almost any topic in them. Freshmen have to write between 2100 and 3000 words and each year the requirement goes up. Sometimes it can be difficult coming up with your own thesis, but a good trick to learn is thinking about what topics you enjoyed discussing in class. We use a writing style called Turabian which will become your Bible for writing papers, because it has EVERYTHING in it. Buy it, love it, follow it.

Other things: That covers the basics of Torrey, but the tutors really want everyone’s experience to be custom made. To accommodate this there are such things as Torrey theater, Torrey abroad, metaTorreys (intense focus groups where you creat a different curriculum for a semester and create a new group. I’m planning on making one in a few years, but some past ones are Shakespeare, the Gospel of John, etc.) and other things. We also have special events like Homerithons, Torrey Freshman initiatives, and more. Torrey is a super complex program, but totally worth it. You learn so much about life and what it means to be human. You gain a family that you get to grow with for 4 years and a mentor that you can never forget.