This fall Houghton College will introduce a new Honors Program specifically targeted at second year and transfer students. Called Scholastica, the program is aimed at transfer and second year students. The rigorous program will combine the Bible and Theology requirements to form one intensive course that aims to challenge students. Scholastica is intended to provide the “same sort of challenge and radical development that is the purpose of our first year honors programs,” said Benjamin Lipscomb, director of honors.
The committee in charge of designing Scholastica chose Bible and Theology as the disciplines to pair together because they are disciplines that “community college students, even those that come in with an A.A., haven’t satisfied when they got here” according to Lipscomb. According to Jonathan Case, professor of theology, this specific pair of disciplines is also a natural fit because the lessons learned about interpretation “has application value far beyond the boundaries of this course”.
Taught by Case and Sarah Derck, professor of old testament, the program will take the form of a six credit class, which will meet five days a week. The class will proceed chronologically through Biblical and Christian history. The program is structured around the history of statements of faith and scriptural interpretation, both in Jewish history and Christian history, Lipscomb said.
The goal of the class is to allow students to “go deeper into the interaction between scripture, history, and theological reflection than they would ordinarily have the chance to do in either Biblical Literature or Introduction to Christianity,” according to Case. This will include extensive reading of the primary sources.
According to Case, Derck will be the primary teacher for the first part of the class, taking the lead in teaching from “ancient Israel… to the primitive Christian movement.” Case will be the primary instructor from the primitive Christian movement until the present. However, Case stated, there will hopefully be “a lot of interaction in the classroom” between the two professors.
Scholastica has been designed to be a “very intense program,” Case said. Current students interested in applying to join the program should be interested in taking “the opportunity to go deep, and to go through this together” with a group of other students interested in the same topics.
The idea for the program was the realization that transfer students are an increasing proportion of students entering Houghton. Lipscomb, saw a need for a program targeting these students as well as second year students who “maintained a 3.5 [GPA] or above their first semester at Houghton; people who came and showed that they can do really excellently”.
The application and selection process will be as rigorous as the rest of the class. Recruitment for the program has already begun. For this introductory year, students waitlisted from last year’s honors program will be given the opportunity to join the program. According to Cindy Austin, Admission Counselor in charge of transfer students, they hope to interview about 50 students, and hope to have “the first cohort be 20-25 students”.
One of the major sources for students in Scholastica is expected to be community colleges, like Monroe Community College (MCC), that already have a strong relationship with Houghton College’s Admission Office. MCC in particular has a “really thriving honors program for their students,” who hopefully will be interested in continuing that challenging academic curriculum at Houghton.
Scholastica is expected to be a program that will allow transfer students entering Houghton as well as high-achieving current students to have a “rigorous and communal experience” that will make their Houghton career “as good as it can be,” Lipscomb said.