July 11, 2008 | By Gary D. Myers
NEW ORLEANS -- With gasoline prices reaching record highs, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary has implemented three initiatives to ease the burden on students and make theological education more accessible.
The efforts include a new online commuter connection center to aid in establishing carpools, a one-year exemption of the online course restrictions for main campus students, and Wednesday schedule changes. The cost-saving steps are designed to relieve some of the financial strain on commuter students throughout the NOBTS system.
“We want to be responsive to our commuter students, whether they are extension center students or students coming to the New Orleans campus,” said NOBTS Provost Steve Lemke. “[The increased fuel cost] is something we are all experiencing, but the burden falls much harder on our commuting students. We want students to know that we are doing all we can to mitigate the dramatic increase in costs that they are experiencing.”
A student with a 100 mile round-trip commute could spend several hundred dollars over the semester to travel to campus just one day a week, Lemke said. The financial burden rises with each additional trip. And it is not uncommon for commuter students to travel to campus two or three days per week.
In response to rising prices at the pump, the seminary launched an online commuter connection forum designed to help jump start carpooling groups to share increased commuting costs. Students may login on the seminary’s secure, IQWeb system to access the commuter connection and find other commuters from their area. The user-friendly forum allows students throughout the NOBTS system to respond to carpooling requests and post new requests.
Lemke noted that many NOBTS commuters already carpool, but he hopes the commuter connection will facilitate even more ridesharing. The carpools can be either for the seminary’s main campus or any of the seminary’s extension center campuses.
“It is a way to help our students be good stewards of their own resources and of the environment,” he added.
The second initiative is a one-year exception to the rule prohibiting New Orleans students from taking online classes. In the past, on-campus and New Orleans commuter students have been limited from taking online classes.
“First of all, on-campus students have greater access to the courses they need,” Lemke said. “These courses are routinely offered in each semester, many of them multiple times. It is not normally an issue of students being able to get the courses.”
“Secondly, the seminary receives no SBC funding at all for Internet courses, whereas the SBC provides maximum funding for master’s-level on-campus students,” Lemke said. “In order to keep the regular tuition affordable for everyone, we had to limit who takes the Internet courses.”
But in light of the increased gasoline costs, Lemke said the seminary’s administrators decided to lift the restriction for one year. Lemke stressed the temporary nature of this move. “It is not our intention to continue the exception past one year,” Lemke said. “Our hope is that this will give students time to adjust their budgets and driving patterns for the increased travel costs.”
While the move was primarily intended to help students with long commutes, internet courses will be open to any student this year, including on-campus students. However, most students who live on the New Orleans campus will not find it prudent to take these courses because (a) many other class options are available to them, (b) the internet courses cost more, (c) spouse discounts and the new discount for taking more than nine hours of semester-length courses do not apply for the internet courses, and (d) the normal requirements still apply for on-campus housing and financial aid (nine regular hours for graduate students and 12 hours for undergraduate students). Internet classes and workshops still do not count for full-time status.
A third initiative concerns changes in the Wednesday schedule at the New Orleans campus which will also help commuter students. Beginning with the fall semester, NOBTS will not continue holding Wednesday chapel services on the main campus. Many commuter students were unable to attend Wednesday chapel because they opted for a Tuesday-Thursday only class schedule. The move opens the 11 a.m. period Wednesday for additional course offerings, making it easier for commuter students or other on-campus students to meet full-time course load requirements by taking classes just two days per week.
Under the new schedule a student may take nine hours of coursework before 12:30 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays. This allows those serving as pastors and church staff members to return home by early afternoon to prepare for Wednesday services. Student may elect to earn more hours by participating in Wednesday-Friday afternoon classes.
“It’s a much more commuter-friendly schedule now on Wednesdays and Fridays,” Lemke said. “A lot of these classes will be Wednesday-only classes. Students could consider doing a Monday-Wednesday schedule as another option. They can easily take a full-time load that way.”
“Our hope is that all three of these moves will help our students overcome increased travel costs without slowing the theological education into which God has called them,” Lemke said.
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