Students could be downhill skiing or snowboarding in the Rockies and earning credit for it in the next few weeks.
“This opportunity is a fantastic way to experience God’s creation while enjoying and learning the lifetime skill of downhill skiing and snowboarding,” said Kent Johnson, who has organized a Wintermester physical education class that will take Lipscomb students to the mountainsides of Monarch, Colo., in the next few weeks.
“Many students have some ski experience in the eastern part of the United States, but this trip allows them to expand their experience to the Rocky Mountains,” Johnson said.
Of course not all Wintermester students are going to be speeding down the Rocky Mountain slopes during the break between semesters.
Still, whether it is to catch up, get ahead or be able to take a lighter load next semester, many students are taking advantage of the Wintermester offerings.
This year’s Wintermester offers mostly general education courses with a few degree specific classes.
Classes are offered in hybrid, online or traveling formats and range from Fundamentals of Biology to Theater in New York.
Subjects and formats are chosen by what each department deems feasible for students to thoroughly learn a topic in a condensed amount of time.
Professors also are offered $1,000 grants to transfer a classroom course into an online format.
They may also organize one of the traveling learning experiences. The professors then enter their ideas into a competition against other professors to determine who will receive the grants.
The provost’s office then awards the grants to the proposals that will benefit the students the most.
“We try to select classes that will have a life after this term,” said Susan Galbreath, associate provost. “We want classes that we will be able to offer for years.”
Galbreath, who oversees Summermester and now Wintermester, attends conferences every year about collegiate summer and winter terms.
After last year’s conference, Galbreath suggested a winter term be started at Lipscomb.
“We just didn’t get started soon enough,” Galbreath said.
Last year, the university offered what was called Janmester.
“We had only two classes offered and a total enrollment of four students [in Janmester],” Gablreath said.
By early planning and learning from experience, Lipscomb’s first Wintermester offers 14 classes and currently has close to 100 students enrolled.
Wintermester will be Dec. 17- Jan. 8, beginning right after final exams and ending a few days before the spring semester begins.