Commuters may find themselves at a disadvantage when it comes to earning extra chapel credits. With tight schedules and the length and expense of the commute to school and back, it can be hard enough to get the right amount of regular chapels, let alone come back for more.
Extra credit opportunities include Kingdom Come, Solace and Faith and Film. Students can also earn up to three credits for small group attendance and service projects. Kingdom Come is 9pm on Thursdays and Solace is held on a Friday once a month at 1pm.
With the majority of the student body living on campus, the days and times for these extra chapel credit opportunities are not a problem for most. But off-campus student and senior Rebecca Pennington said, “As a commuter that lives 30 minutes from school, coming back up here at 9 or 10 at night is financially impractical. Gasoline is expensive.”
She went on to say that it’s not only commuting itself that is an issue, but also scheduling conflicts.
“Solace is always at 1pm; I have concert choir during that time,” said Pennington. “Kingdom come is at 9pm, and my work schedules me on Thursday nights. My job does not allow me to change my schedule easily.”
This brings up an important point: extra chapel credits might be hard to come by even for on-campus students if they have a job outside of school, which begs the question, “So why not just go to chapel at the regular time?” That would work most of the time, but in case of illness, work or a big assignment due, it’s not that simple. Pennington missed four chapels due to getting flu and strep at the same time.
“I believe that means I am two short,” she said. “I now have to make them up somehow by trying to fit a schedule extra chapel credit into my busy schedule of work, church volunteering, school, and music program stuff.”
The other option if one fails to earn all their chapel credits by the end of the semester is to pay the fine. Fines are $20 for each credit missed, but someone can’t skip all of chapel and pay for it later. “Any student who attends fewer than 15 chapel opportunities will be fined $240 and will not be allowed to return to SNU the next semester,” the SNU website states.
Commuters across the SNU community hope to see some changes with chapel credit in the near future.
[author image=”http://echo.snu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/IMG_6206.jpg” ] Rachel Whatley, Guest Contributor
Rachel is a sophomore music performance major and pianist extraordinaire from Yukon, OK. She likes fantasy/science fiction and is considering getting an English or writing minor.[/author]