| Administration considers chapel extension
By Christian Bell
Editor in Chief
Chapel time could be extended and daily class schedules rearranged if a proposal being considered by the academic deans and the faculty gains momentum.
The Dean of the Chapel, together with the Provost’s office, is currently investigating a modification of the daily class schedule that would allot the full hour between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. for chapel and meeting times.
Chimes first broke the story two years ago, when it was stated that the proposal had been “put on hold” pending the appointment of a new Dean of the Chapel. That position is now filled by John Witvliet, who has continued to push for the plan.
“I was asked [two years ago] what it would look like,” said Registrar Tom Steenwyk. “I said, ‘Well, I can tell you it will mess the schedule up pretty good.’”
The discussion began in the college’s Chapel Committee several years ago, when dissatisfaction was expressed by committee members with the 18 minute time slot that chapel is currently allotted.
“The idea has been in the air for two years,” said Provost Joel Carpenter.
“I heard of it probably two years ago in a Faculty Senate meeting,” said Steenwyk.
Chapel Committee members felt they didn’t have the opportunity to vary their programming enough, and they couldn’t do things like bringing in special off-campus speakers, who would only be given 10 minute to speak.
“I think there are enormous possibilities for very creative chapel services that we can’t begin to put together right now, because they essentially have to be 18 minute services, and that limits so many things,” said Witvliet, who also heads the Chapel Committee.
“We’ve got a lot of great things we could do that our current 20 minute time frame constrains too much,” Carpenter said. Carpenter is not a member of the Chapel Committee.
The matter moved from an informal discussion within the Chapel Committee to a formal matter of consideration for the Committee, the Dean of the Chapel, the Student Life office, the Academic Deans and the Provost.
The issue was then brought before Faculty Senate two weeks ago, where it came under immediate fire.
Various departments, particularly the sciences, raised questions about class scheduling specific to their department. Conflicts were envisioned with morning lab sessions, nursing programs, and studio art classes that meet for several hours in the morning.
Carpenter challenged this, saying, “A lot of colleges have classes with split schedules. The real concern is for musical groups that would feel compelled to push their practices back by 30 minutes.”
Another strong criticism that reverberated throughout the departments was a concern for student athletes whose schedules are already tight with mid-afternoon practices. Faculty members argued that were classes to be extended to run later into the day, some athletes would be late to practices and games, or else have to miss classes – neither of which is seen as an acceptable solution.
“I’m not sure they’d have to push their practices back. They would just have to counsel their students saying, ‘look, this 3:00 class time slot’s not going to work for you,” Carpenter said.
The specifics of the plans that were presented to the faculty on how to move around the schedule weren’t well received.
“There wasn’t a single person in support of it,” Steenwyk said. “All the comments were directed towards how it would affect the schedule. I wasn’t too excited to go in front of the faculty with that.”
However, the overall faculty reaction was not one of adamant opposition, which gave those in favor of the proposal hope that it might one day pass.
“Frankly,” Carpenter said, “I expected there to be a major and passionate reaction against the tried and true way of doing things, and I didn’t hear that. I heard a variety of objections, but I heard other people say, ‘maybe we can address some of these problems.’”
“I thought there were a number of helpful suggestions, both in the category of things to be aware of and some creative suggestions of other ways to put the schedule together,” said Witvliet. “It seemed to me like it was pretty thoughtful engagement.”
“There was less resistence than we normally get for change, which makes you think ‘well, maybe it could happen.’” Steenwyk said. “They were hotter against the new core.”
Several proposals regarding where the extra time for the lengthened chapel would come from are being looked at, and each administrator gives a slightly different spin on how the schedule arrangement would play out. The most common consensus, however, seems to be that classes that meet after chapel would meet approximately 30 minutes later.
“There have been a variety of models we’ve looked at,” Carpenter said. “Each of them has to do with finding some way to reshuffle the rest of the day’s academic calendar.”
The original plan called for a lengthened chapel every day, meaning a complete overhaul of the daily academic schedule would be required.
“I think it’s fair to say that the Chapel Committee, in looking at all the proposals, loves the idea of simply making it a 40 minute break every day,” said Witvliet. “I think if the Committee had to vote, it would probably vote that way.”
A number of administrators and faculty oppose the idea, including the Registrar, and Witvliet was quick to clarify that neither he nor the Chapel Committee are pushing fervently for a major change.
“Because a change in schedule has some many ramifications, I see my role as being to try to help clarify the conversation [of the issue] and the pros and cons,” Witvliet said.
Carpenter alluded to a possible compromise in the scheduling – one that would still allow for some extended worship periods.
The Carpenter Plan calls for several weeks of the semester to be set up for one or two lengthened worship periods. In essence, it would be like running the beginning-of-the-year Convocation schedule several times during the semester.
Under the Carpenter Plan, no permanent adjustments to the daily course schedule are necessary – a few days of the semester would simply run with shorter class periods and a longer chapel period.
Witvliet responded to this proposal with interest. “If that were to come out of this conversation, I’d be thrilled,” he said. “I think that would be a terrific move – a more modest move, but it’s headed in the right direction.”
“We do it at least twice a year anyway,” Steenwyk said, “and people tolerated it for the good of whatever event you have at that time.”
Although students have largely been kept in the dark about the discussion until now, the Student Senate was made aware of the proposal and has already come to a consensus opinion on the matter, which it gave to Carpenter, Witvliet and Steenwyk in a letter dated Nov. 4, 2002.
In that letter, the Student Senate says, “Student Senators have voiced…reservations regarding this proposal, and have overwhelmingly spoken against this proposed change.”
“The Student Senate standing together against it [will] have a big impact on whether or not [the proposal] happens,” Steenwyk said.
The Student Senate agrees with the motives behind the proposal but doesn’t think that the current plans for lengthening chapel will be beneficial.
“The prospect of a forty-five minute chapel is both exciting and daunting,” they said.
Witvliet said that the Chapel Committee was sensitive to problems inherent in lengthening chapel time.
“One of the big cautions of the committee [is], ‘will people not come to an event that is longer?’” he said. “And I don’t think anybody knows the answer to that.”
Worship is not the only focus driving the desire for an extended chapel break. Another prevalent desire in reworking the daily and weekly schedule is to cut chapel back to four days a week, in order to set aside one day of the week to be used for meetings of committees and student organizations.
“It would be a time for departments to do committee work or a chance for all the campus to meet; those sorts of things are increasingly hard to get done on campus,” Carpenter said. “It’s a serious ongoing concern. Everybody is just getting busier.”
The possible elimination of a day of chapel was one of Student Senate’s main objections to the chapel-restructuring proposal.
“It would be a step backwards for our chapel program to cut out a day of chapel,” the Student Senate letter says. “This proposal doesn’t seem to best fit the needs of students.”
Potentially undermining the Student Senate’s position, however, is a widely-acknowledged understanding that few students actually take advantage of chapel time to attend chapel. The cafeterias and student lounges frequently fill to capacity at 10 a.m. on class days.
“[Chapel] is probably not reaching half of our student body on a regular basis,” Carpenter said.
Even so, Carpenter said he is sympathetic to the concerns Senate raises.
“I heard Student Senate’s concerns about this, and they may be right that it may in fact exacerbate that problem rather than make it better because it takes out one day of option for students. Students may, in fact, be less likely to go the longer chapel gets. Those are serious considerations. I don’t think around the Dean’s table that we’d thought of them, so it was good to hear from the students on it.”
Ultimately, opinions on the proposal are still very mixed, and there is no clear consensus for any one particular course of action.
“I’m withholding any opinions on the whole manner,” Steenwyk said. “I don’t think anyone on the Dean’s committee is even pushing it hard; they just want to look at it.”
Mixed opinions will make taking a next step more complicated for supporters of the proposal. It seems, however, that they at least have the ideological support of some of the administration.
“I think it’s important, among other things, that there are so very few occasions when we can feel like we have anything like a quorum as a whole community, and I think that those kinds of assemblies are really good for Calvin,” Carpenter said. “There are times when we really have to lift our heads up from our particular work, think about the big picture, praise God for what he’s enabled us to do, hear challenges about unfinished business and try to do that together as a college.”
“I guess if I have any doubts, I’m wondering if we can sustain that every week. Our Dean of the Chapel and his team have creativity to burn, but I think over time we might see diminishing returns on [a longer chapel].”
“I think there are a number of pros and cons,” Witvliet said. “Personally, I would love to take the risk of attempting the change in an effort to see what new kinds of communal patterns of interaction that we can get going.”
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