The One Year Demographic
An article on the one year programs at Columbia
By Andrea Ykema
About a half of the 500 students at Columbia are first-year students. Perhaps 100 of these students are directly involved in a one-year certificate program such as Quest or iCert. We have an impressive amount of first-year students who never intend to study at Columbia for an extended period of time. This realization is cause for concern to some, who center the success of an educational institution on student retention. Yet the story is not that simple. As always in life, there are more layers than meet the eye – and when evaluated through the lens of history, tradition and spirit, Columbia’s abundance of first-year students can be realized as something to be proud of.
I sat down with Professor Ron Voth to hear his perspective on this feature of Columbia’s student community and found that a history lesson was integral to my understanding of our current state.
“The mission among many Christians, especially Mennonites, for many years was to hold the Word central. The Word was extremely important. So if your life was to be lived according to the Word, then it stood to reason that you should know the Word. Schools sprang up all over the place for people whose kids would go to the Bible school… not necessarily with the intention of becoming a pastor, but just to learn Scripture and grow in personal devotion with God.”
It seems that Bible schools were places not for employment education, but for providing a theological foundation. This instruction was often done in the period of one or maybe two years, and provided men and women alike with the opportunity to understand the Bible to a deeper level than would have been possible through independent study. It was only later that four year programs were added to Bible colleges in keeping with the educational trends.
Ron recalled his own experience, “When I turned seventeen or eighteen, it was customary that in my youth group about half of the people would go to a Bible school. They would go for a year. The idea was a year, maybe two years. There weren’t many three or four year schools… It grew to be some place where people could collect themselves before they set out on other tracks.”
CBC has its roots in that kind of movement. We have alumni with only one or two years on their record, which is a notably odd concept. This tradition was apparent, and it continues to exist. As long as Columbia offers more than vocational training – as long as our mission is rooted in a passion to share knowledge of spiritual things – this overlooked demographic will continue. Students will continue to come for a year, or perhaps two years, with the desire for a foundation and not a degree.
It is a unique challenge to support a student body that is not solely based on retention. And yet our history reminds us that this is one of our strengths – to provide every person that comes through our doors with something greater than a vocation. We provide them with a perspective from which to encounter God.
For more information on our one year programs, visit our iCert or Quest web pages.
