Details

Depending on the track chosen, the minor will comprise 25 or 26 credit hours, to be distributed across required classes, electives, and an internship.

Before applying for acceptance into the minor, students are required to take two prerequisite courses: a two-credit gateway course (MIN 201) and one 200-level Religion course. The gateway course is designed to help provide students with a common language for thinking about theology and ministry, as well as to help them in their discernment process as they decide whether to pursue this minor. Students must have taken it or be enrolled in it to be eligible to apply for acceptance into the Studies in Ministry Minor. (Details of the application process will be provided during MIN 201.)

Once students are accepted into the minor they will need two years to finish the minor (note that this differs for the class of 2009; see “To Apply”). Students are required to take another 200-level Religion course (which must be REL 220 if it has not already been taken), a capstone seminar course sequence, and a six-credit internship. The four-credit capstone sequence will meet across one school year—two courses of two credits each. It will, in most cases, be taken at the same time as students are doing their required internship. The six-credit internship will require nine hours per week of involvement with a ministry or organization throughout one school year (totaling 252 hours), as well as meetings every other week with a student’s mentor. This internship requirement may take a different shape for the Social Witness track depending on options available/chosen by the student (see below).

In addition, each of the three tracks within the minor has one required concentration course and one or two elective courses, depending on the track.

During the year when students are not participating in an internship, they will meet together with a peer group once a month to explore and develop spiritual disciplines, under the guidance of the director of the minor.

Each student will be matched with a mentor for the duration of the student’s involvement in the minor. Mentors will be chosen in conversation with students, their internship supervisors where applicable, and the director of the minor.

Students will be required to participate in four training seminars that cover ministry-related topics such as diversity, sexual assault/harassment, budget and administration, and counseling.