Part-time/Distance Learning Options

Most of Saint Meinrad’s lay degree students pursue their degree on a part-time basis, and many of these part-time students live several hours away from campus. Realizing these students have other responsibilities—family, full-time work, parish and community involvement, etc.—Saint Meinrad provides a variety of course formats that fit into the busy lives of lay students. Students must earn at least half of their degree credits through courses that meet on campus.

Weekday Courses
This traditional course format, in which lay students and seminarians study side-by-side for the duration of the fall or spring semesters, is most convenient for students living within regular commuting distance from the Saint Meinrad campus. Core classes generally meet on Tuesdays and Fridays or Mondays and Thursdays; electives are generally Monday, Thursday or Friday afternoons.

Weekly Podcast Courses
This format is based on a fall or spring semester course offered at Saint Meinrad in the regular weekday format. The lectures and discussion are recorded digitally and processed into files that combine the audio of the lecture with the video of the professor’s PowerPoint presentations. Distance-based students keep up with the course by downloading these files every week and doing the same assignments as in-class students.

Weekend Courses
This is the primary course format for part-time students living some distance from Saint Meinrad. Weekend courses consist of three all-day Saturday-Sunday weekends (with a break on Sunday for Mass), roughly one per month for three months.

This compressed format gives students the same classroom time as a conventional weekly course, but requires being on campus only one weekend per month. Weekend courses are offered year-round; most students take four per year. Many weekend courses are Web-enhanced, using Saint Meinrad’s online learning platform to post readings and promote further student interaction.

Weekend/Week Intensive Courses
Intensive courses are designed to economize travel for part-time students who drive longer distances to campus and provide opportunities for an extended stay. Intensive courses meet on the second weekend course meeting of the early Summer Session, and reconvene a month later, beginning on the Saturday of the third weekend course and extending through Wednesday, for a total of seven days of instruction.

Online Courses
Taught during the spring, summer and fall terms, these courses are taught entirely online, using Saint Meinrad’s online learning platform. Online courses have regularly scheduled assignments and promote a great degree of peer interaction. Students may take up to 15 credit hours in the online format.

Web-Hybrid Courses
Web-hybrid courses are a combination of an online and a weekend-format class. Like the online courses, they use the School’s online learning platform to facilitate the course. Additionally, students travel to Saint Meinrad campus for three full Saturdays of instruction, roughly once a month.

Independent Studies
In cases where the student has academic or pastoral interests not specifically addressed by available courses, or the student has extraordinary circumstances that prevent enrolling in another course format, he or she may make arrangements with a professor to set up a directed independent study.