After more than a year of community listening sessions, research into key barriers, and donor outreach, Calvin’s Wayfinder Program launched its first cohort this fall. The program currently has 23 continuing education students, who will receive eight transferable credits in the humanities at the end of this academic year.
The program is entirely funded by donors and grants, and is modeled on a curriculum provided by the national Clemente Course in the Humanities, whose goal is to “[provide] a transformative educational experience for adults facing economic hardship and adverse circumstances,” according to their website.
What is the Wayfinder Program?
Students in the Wayfinder Program meet on Wednesday evenings over the course of the academic year. Classes take place at the Women’s Resource Center, a community building on Madison Avenue in the heart of Grand Rapids’ 49507 zip code.
The theme of the fall semester Wayfinder course is “What is the Good Life?” The course has an interdisciplinary humanities focus, including history, philosophy, literature and art history. In keeping with the theme of the Clemente courses, there aren’t currently plans to expand the Wayfinder curriculum into STEM. “For now, we’re sticking with the traditional humanities and then building pathways to degree completion,” Holly Daly, a community resource specialist working for the 49507 initiative, said.
Jason Stevens is one of Wayfinder’s academic co-directors and teaches literature for the program. Stevens was one of the people who pitched a Clemente course to Calvin’s global campus office and has been involved in the preparation of the course for more than a year. In the introductory literature session, Stevens led a poetry reading and a discussion about the Socratic method.
Wayfinder students have two writing assignments per week, based on the content of the course and the classroom experience. “We spend time talking about the disciplines themselves: Why study history? Why study literature? The idea is to introduce students to these disciplines as modes of human inquiry,” Stevens said.
Sarah Meyer, one of the Wayfinder students, heard about the program through local news. Meyer studied international relations earlier in life and hopes the credits she earns will help complete that degree. “I’d like to be able to continue my education, and I really like the community outlook,” Meyer said.
Returning to school through Wayfinder has been easier than trying to go back to traditional undergraduate studies, Meyer says. For Meyer, the fact that the learners in Wayfinder are all older adults who’ve come at education in a more unorthodox way contributes to a space where “everyone is very understanding” and the classroom feels like “more of a family environment, rather than in a traditional classroom.”
Wayfinder student Lexie Zuno works for a local school district and heard about the opportunity to pursue higher education from a co-worker there. Through Wayfinder, Zuno hopes to get a jumpstart on an eventual bachelor’s degree in secondary education, which she hadn’t considered as an option before. “Personally, I never would have taken the risk of thinking or reading like this. It’s pretty cool how I’m challenging myself in a new aspect of learning,” Zuno said.
Connecting with Calvin
Abbie Lipsker, Calvin’s director of continuing studies, told Chimes that one of the broader goals of the 49507 Initiative was to find places where Calvin could engage with the communities in its immediate neighborhood. Calvin has a long tradition of offering robust educational experiences around the world, but Lipsker says Wayfinder is the first initiative “designed with the immediate community in mind.”
Currently, Lipsker and Daly say the main way for Calvin students to get involved with the Wayfinder program is through volunteering.
One way that Wayfinder creates the opportunity for continuing education is by offering free childcare during class. On a typical week, around a dozen kids come to the Women’s Resource Center while their parents attend class. Naa Anang-La, an actuarial science major who works providing childcare on Wednesday, told Chimes she wanted to help make a positive difference for the students. “Wayfinder is an opportunity for people who can’t access traditional education, trying to get them the freedom to access higher education,” Anang-La said.
Calvin social work students have also had various opportunities to learn about professional social work settings through the program. Arielle Moody, a senior studying social work, was part of the social research class that conducted community listening sessions last spring. Moody now has an internship placement working with the Wayfinder initiative.
Moody spends time working at the Women’s Resource Center, as well as on campus. Through the internship, Moody says, she’s gotten to practice “making case notes, and adding case management things, and figuring out resources for students” in a real-world setting.
The future
Going forward, Moody would like to see “more intersection with the students on campus.” Daly is also working to connect the Wayfinder students with traditional students at the Knollcrest campus. It’s important, Daly says, to remember that “the Wayfinder students are Calvin students, with IDs and access to campus resources.” Recently, KHVR committed to being a “partner dorm” with the Wayfinder students, although details on the future of that partnership have yet to be settled.
Financially, the Wayfinder program has been funded by donors and grants. As more cohorts move through the program, Calvin hopes to create another initiative, called Way Forward, aimed at bringing Wayfinder graduates to Calvin for degree completion, Lipsker said. Once the students enter degree-bearing programs, that status “comes with monies attached” and will be funded partly through the scholarships and grants open to other students, Lipsker said.
