By Hobie Vannoy

September 9, 2014

As you might have noticed, some changes have been made to the convocation and chapel schedule for the 2014 school year.  Normally, students have convocation every Tuesday and chapel every Thursday, with about three convocations cancelled each semester to free up some time for students.  This year, however, school administration decided to schedule convocation every other Tuesday with chapel remaining every Thursday. 

 

Campus Minister Brad Wallace explained the schedule configuration: “There were a couple of reasons,” Wallace said. “One [reason], is that students at Milligan tend to live at a very frenetic pace.  [Students] are incredibly busy so there was an agenda to try to open up a little more space in everyone’s schedule.” 

 

Wallace also stated, “Our goal is to make chapel more community-oriented by having students and faculty speak.”  This idea, according to Wallace, creates a more personal feel toward chapel that he hopes will cause more students to want to attend chapel, rather than feel forced to.

 

To compensate for the less amount of convocation dates, more SFP special events have been and will be scheduled throughout each semester.  My Two Words is a new event starting this Thursday which students can receive SFP credits.  Another time to accumulate SFP credits is during Missions Awareness Week coming up in October where many SFP event swill be hosted on Milligan’s campus.

 

Overall, the reactions he has received both directly and indirectly, Wallace says, have been “overwhelmingly positive.”

 

Senior Chris Heldman enthusiastically responded, “I do have more SFP [credits] to get to graduate than most seniors.  I blame that on my junior year.”  But then concluded, “If you don’t miss chapel you will be fine though, so I feel no one really has any excuses.”

 

While most students seem to appreciate the change, it has created problems with others. 

 

“I am a little bit worried,” said senior Kaitlyn Round. “I can’t always go to the events planned at night but I can go on Tuesdays and Thursdays at eleven o’clock.  That’s what my schedule is based around.”  Round attributes most of her time outside of class to her Milligan volleyball duties and YoungLife as well as the observation hours her education degree requires.

 

Wallace explains that it just “comes down to discipline…create space and create time…it won’t get any easier.”  Wallace follows with the statement, “Create space for you and create space for God.  That’s what we want the students to get out of this experience.”