Orientation Retreat

The seminary will establish a four-day orientation program of structured activities for incoming students to explore the nature of Christian vocation, to begin building community, and to participate in an outreach project.

Tutorial Time

The new curriculum emphasizes not only competence in liturgical practice but also effectiveness in communication. Tutorial time is set aside in the schedule for students who need extra time and attention to improve writing and musical skills. Students will learn to write in different genres by means of plans, drafts, and revisions. Final exams will become standardized opportunities to synthesize material learned over the course of the semester. Students will also be afforded opportunities to develop basic public speaking skills through short presentations and discussions in integrating seminars and exercises in the classes of teaching and homiletics.

Chapel Choir

Choir Assignments. The seminary will assign students to one of several choirs that will serve in rotation—and sometimes in combination—throughout the academic year. Ideally, these will be two mixed choirs, a male choir, a chant choir (primarily singing monophonic or polyphonic forms of music associated with Byzantine chant, Znamenny chant, and so forth), and a seminary community choir that combines all chapel ensembles and also invites the participation of community members (non-student residents or local singers who regularly attend chapel services).

Choir Leadership. Students in the M.A. program in liturgical music will each be assigned a choir to rehearse, develop, coordinate, and lead in chapel under the guidance of the music faculty, and would take turns directing the SVS community choir. Music faculty will also rehearse and lead the choirs regularly, so that the students will also learn by the example of expert choral leadership. This sort of hands-on training is essential for the development of liturgical music leaders, especially as effective choir directors.

Integrating Seminars

Each year of the program will involve “integrating seminars”—structured opportunities for the holistic integration of Orthodox tradition. Although each course of the core curriculum is designed to provide opportunities for integration, it is the intention of the integrating seminars to encourage different types of integration—academic and pastoral; personal and corporate; the classroom and the chapel. Students will use the in-class time not only to discuss the specific themes of the seminar but also to present orally their work in progress from other courses.

Enriching Fridays

As students will be taking four academic courses each semester, certain Fridays will be used to enrich the students’ education by:

• Inviting experts to conduct day-long retreats and workshops on material not directly covered within the parameters of the core curriculum. These sessions would address such topics as mission, bio-ethics, iconology, and will be open to the entire seminary community.
• Offering short courses, modeling what a priest or lay leader could undertake in his or her parish, and providing modules that seminary faculty would take “on the road” around the country.
• Organizing symposia on topics of lively interest, providing an occasion for faculty, students, and visiting figures to reflect on important topics together.
• Inviting hierarchs from all jurisdictions to spend the day with students each semester, thus providing these ecclesiastical leaders an opportunity to play a meaningful role in the life of the students and the seminary, to come to know the seminary better, and to be known by the students.
• Sponsoring community-building activities and social-outreach opportunities, such as an introduction to prison ministry.

Pastoral Units

Once each semester as part of the Enriching Fridays program—and six times over the three-year M.Div. course of study—students will participate in day-long workshops on selected pastoral topics. Although these topics will also be addressed in the core Pastoral Theology curriculum, these workshops, or “Pastoral Units,” will be used to enrich the pastoral education of students by:

• Inviting skilled adjunct faculty and outside experts to conduct day-long retreats and workshops on material not covered in depth within the parameters of the core courses, such as gerontology, thanatology, pastoral counseling, Orthodox marriage, confession and spiritual direction, personal and corporate prayer.

The pastoral units, each serving as a required component of the students’ respective integrating seminars, will also be open to other members of the seminary community.

Parish Internships and Thesis

Students in the fall semester of their third year may register for an intensive internship with one of the local parish priests selected by the seminary for this program (and hired as adjunct faculty). The internship, which is anticipated to provide the students with 20 hours of contact time each week for 15 weeks, will fulfill the degree program requirements of the two electives normally scheduled for the fall semester. Students who choose the internship option will also be required to write their M.Div. thesis on a topic related to their internship.

Commencement Week

The seminary will organize a four-day commencement program of structured activities for graduating students to reflect on the their time at seminary, to complete the process of building community, and to participate in an outreach project that the students themselves will have planned earlier in the semester.