Administrators have recently discussed the possibility of extending chapel to an hour one or more times a week in the next few years.

Shirley Hoogstra, vice president of Student Life, initially spearheaded the plan in order to allow for greater flexibility in chapel structure. She expressed dissatisfaction with the mere 12 minutes that speakers are generally allotted in the current 20-minute slot, and feels that hour-long chapels would alleviate some of this problem.

Registrar Tom Steenwyk was approached by Provost Joel Carpenter to see what sort of implications this new arrangement would have on the schedule.

“Your initial reaction is to say that this could contain a pretty good challenge,” said Steenwyk. “I really had only two options.”

If chapel would be an hour for more than two days a week, his options were to either start classes at 7:30 every morning and have chapel at 9:30, or else push everything back and start chapel at 10 to begin the class day. Neither were particularly good options for Steenwyk.

Recently, the Academic Council, consisting of various administrators, met to discuss the matter in more detail. They suggested a plan of holding hour-long chapels on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the same half hour slot on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hoogstra herself proposed holding hour-long chapels on Thursdays, with half-hour chapels on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The free hour left on Tuesday, she said, could be used for department meetings, study groups or anything else convenient.

However, these plans have been put on hold pending the appointment of a new Dean of the Chapel. The current Dean, Neal Plantinga, was recently named President of Calvin Seminary, leaving his old position vacant. Since any plans dealing with the restructuring of chapel would have to be worked out with the person in that position, Hoogstra would prefer to wait until the spot is filled. She plans to work more on this idea over the next year, and hopes to implement some sort of change by the 2002-2003 school year.

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