Paige Wassel
Senior Writer
This fall, students will have the option to take elective courses taught by their peers for the first time in Milligan history.
Six “house course” proposals were accepted for the fall semester. These one-hour extracurricular courses are taught by students with faculty guidance, and may be taken for elective credit on a pass/fail grading system.
“I am very pleased with the student response and the proposals,” Academic Dean Mark Matson said. “They are interesting, and show a wide range of topics.”
Matson said that this year all the proposed courses were accepted, and this seemed like a reasonable number of courses to offer.
“The number of accepted proposals will probably depend a bit on student response to the offered courses,” Matson said. “We will ultimately adjust the number of accepted proposals to somewhat match expected demand.”
The student teachers receive both credit and a $200 stipend for the courses.
The house courses for the fall semester include “American Jesus” taught by Abby Conley, “Who is Satan?” taught by Andrew Gibbens, “Women in Church, Bible and Home” taught by Melissa McGovern, “Body Image and Media” taught by Jessica Jennings, “Christ in Relationships” taught by Aaron Gilley and “Israeli/Palestinian Conflict” taught by Deke Bowman.
Sophomore Abby Conley said the idea for her course topic came out of a discussion with Dr. Pat Magness about an article in the Chronicle for Higher Education. The article was a book review on a book that examined how Americans have interpreted different images of Jesus and how he had become an icon in American culture. Conley said she would be interested in looking deeper into this topic in her course.
“My goal would be looking at (the question) ‘how does this (topic) really impact our faith?’” Conley said. “Symbols of Jesus are everywhere and it often has nothing to do with Christ. Are we coming to a point where we’re interpreting Jesus just according to our ideals and our culture?”
Matson said he hoped these house courses would encourage students who are interested in special topics to get other students excited about these topics.
“I hope that students will find that academic discussions can take place outside of required courses, and that we can find a language to discuss the intersection of faith and learning,” Matson said.