LURA AJDINI, TRUMPET STAFF WRITER
Due to low enrollment and other factors, philosophy and peace & justice studies majors have been eliminated at Wartburg College.
“The religion department was unanimous in its decision and the faculty members were unanimous in our decision to propose to BPC, which is a faculty government’s committee, to eliminate those two major programs,” Dr. Justin Jeffcoat Schedtler, chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy, said. “That decision came as a result of many years of discussion,”
Current majors will have relevant courses offered for these programs, but new majors will not be accepted, according to Schedtler. “We’re going to continue offering courses in both philosophy and peace and justice
majors, in other words we will continue offering a minor program,” Schedtler said.
“There have always been and continue to be very low numbers of students who are majors. We would love to continue offering those majors but we do have limited resources. We want to focus on an area that is growing, which is the religion major program.”
Students who have gone through the two programs that were eliminated received an excellent education, but it was necessary to eliminate the programs because they were not able to offer the majors in the best way, according to Dr. Kristin Wendland, assistant professor of religion.
“We are focusing on the strengths of our current faculty and working to offer a full slate of interesting courses for those in our department and for those completing faith and reflection requirements,” Wendland said. “To that end several new courses have been developed, including a course in interfaith studies.”
For more information on the religion major, go to wartburg.edu/religion.
Knight Wire 
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