As we ring in the 2024-2025 academic year, Stetson’s campus is buzzing with new changes— a less obvious one being the new 3:2+1 curriculum. A few adjustments will be made to the way professors approach not only their class offerings but also their approach to experiential learning.
So what exactly is this new 3:2+1 program? In short, the 3:2+1 program does what its name implies. In one semester, professors will offer their usual three classes, hence the “three” of the ratioed title. The “two-plus-one” aspect refers to professors having the option to drop a class they would typically offer in the next semester and replace it with a third venture for students to participate in. These programs can range from different Study Abroad opportunities that were not previously accessible to shadowing professionals in their desired career paths.
From its conception, the 3:2+1 program has been about the betterment of Stetson from the perspective of its students and educators. Drs. Eric Kurlander, Steven Smallpage and Timothy Peter are the main driving forces behind the installment of this new program into Stetson’s curriculum. They will oversee the board along with President Roellke to ensure that everything will run smoothly during this pilot period.
Entering the 2024-2025 academic year, a fire has been lit under many professors to get creative with what they offer, which will allow them to break their typical two-year class cycles and offer new, creative programs. This curriculum will also allow students to incorporate more experiential learning than they would receive in a classroom setting.
Arts and Humanities: One Addition, Infinite Opportunities
Department Chair of Religious Studies Dr. Christopher Bell is extremely optimistic about the success of this upcoming program. Majority of the department will be participating in the 3:2+1 initiative starting in the Fall.
“We’re all doing different [projects] to accommodate it,” Bell said. “Dr. Chavez, for instance, is emphasizing ‘Religion and Video Games,’ and wants to create a sort of environment for students and professors to talk about that.”
Other projects include Dr. Palmer’s workshop with students and other institutions’ religious studies programs like Florida State University to develop an inter-institutional conference over the next year. Dr. Bell will have a Department Colloquium.
This Department Colloquium is a longstanding requirement in the Religious Studies department. Previously, this would entail students gathering once a week to immerse themselves in deep conversation, regarding various topics in religion. This stimulates the development of critical thinking and the de-stigmatization of conversation surrounding religion and theology. The efforts of all professors in the Religious Studies department would oversee this colloquium. Now, Dr. Bell will be able to take the Department Colloquium head-on as his +1, freeing up the schedules of other professors, and bridging credit to work that was previously overlooked by many as “extracurricular” or otherwise.
Changes like these would not disrupt degree requirements for the Humanities. Since the major requirements are generalized into different content sections, there will still be plenty of courses to choose from, especially with some overlap in requirements. The faculty are working on having certain courses be “waived or remediated,” as described by Bell, for students in place of their participation in these +1s, to not prolong their graduation date.
Sciences: Piloting into Professions
Moving from the Arts to the Sciences, Dr. Michele Skelton embraces the benefits the 3:2+1 system has on STEM. She plans to take her students to the University of Central Florida College of Medicine’s Anatomy Laboratory, placing them directly in a medical lab to have them shadow first-year medical students. Although she was doing this previously, she will be able to offer this experience on a wider scale more often.
This will differ from her previous trips to the UCF MedLab through increased opportunities to shadow. It allows for students to seize more opportunities that are available. “If I am offering advanced anatomy in the spring, I may only get my students to shadow them once,” Skelton said. “But if I can take the 3:2+1 and cross over fall and spring, I may be able to get students in three to four times now because they have more experiences in the fall than [they do] in the spring. And then in the spring, I can shift to actual lab experiences.”
The system is not without its challenges. Some departments are understaffed, causing issues in majors with strict and specific requirements or pre/co-requisites.
“The sciences are limited, usually by the lab space, not by the lecture space,” Skeleton said. “I can have a huge anatomy and physiology class. I just can’t accommodate the labs, because we’re limited by how many people we can safely have in a lab with what we’re doing.”
Word on the Green
Stetson students are experiencing mixed emotions regarding the new 3:2+1 program. Especially students approaching their senior year.
Alexis Harrison ’25 expresses hesitation towards the new program. “I feel like it was good in theory, giving professors more time to work on outside-of-the-classroom things, Harrison said. “I feel like it makes it harder for students. It reduces the amount of classes that are available to take during the semester and it makes it harder to get to classes and to get the classes that are needed I feel.”
However, things may be a little calmer for Michael Terezakis ’27, a Religious Studies and Psychology student who doesn’t have any fear of adding a fifth year, with new and refreshing programs listed on his course catalogs as an underclassman.
“I personally believe that the 3:2+1 program is a great outlet for creativity for both professors and undergrads to try something new,” Terezakis said enthusiastically. “I have discussed with professors about their potential ideas and have seen the amount of passion they have when describing these possibilities. I am very intrigued to see how these programs will help students at Stetson flourish and learn in these eventful courses.”
Nonetheless, it is important to enter this upcoming semester with an open mind. After all of the work that it took to create this program, no stone has been left unturned in search of a better way to educate students before they go out into their post-graduate lives. But as students may see in the Fall ’24 semester, there is always room for improvement.
