A piece of advice: when sitting at the dinner table at Summit, DO NOT mention the fact that there are only five weeks left in our semester. The comment will be met with disapproving frowns and will be, for...
Institutes - Summit Semester
Download
Promo Video - Summit Semester 2008 Information Packet - Summit Semester 2008 Application - Summit Semester
Skip to Summit Semester Info
Status: Guys (open), Girls (open)
(click for application)
2008 Calendar - Summit Semester
September 5 — November 28Status: Guys (open), Girls (open)
(click for application)
Summit Semester
Nestled in the Rocky Mountains is a beautiful, modern facility where 30 students will learn from some of the top Christian minds in the country. Our environment will nurture spiritual formation and hone intellectual skills, while also helping our students develop strong interpersonal relationships. Our goal is to prepare students for the challenges they will face at the university while motivating them to be influential leaders, shaping the ideas of culture for the glory of God and the good of our society.
Summit Semester
The cost for this 12-week program is $10,500 (scholarship money is awarded to every student based on merit and need). This covers all classes, food, lodging, as well as a group study trip.
Additional expenses include the $30 non-refundable application fee, travel to and from Snow Wolf Lodge, books (about $200), and incidentals should be expected.
Please complete the Summit Semester Application to begin the application process. Once we receive the application we will be in communication for the remainder of the process.
Summit Semester
Summit Semester is proud to have Dr. Michael Bauman as our Scholar-in-Residence. Dr. Bauman comes to us from Hillsdale College, in Hillsdale, Michigan, where he is professor of Theology and Culture, and Director of Christian Studies. He also is a former president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, and was once a member of the editorial department of Newsweek magazine. Dr. Bauman has published numerous books, articles and political editorials; his books include God and Man in the Twentieth Century, Man and Creation, Are You Politically Correct?, 90 Days in the Christian Classics, and Pilgrim Theology.
Dr. Bauman lives on site and teaches three classes which comprise the core of our academic program. The three courses are:
History of Christian Thought
This course surveys Church history from the early church to the Reformation by closely studying significant theological debates as they arose in the Church.Christianity and Politics
This course surveys prominent political systems—from utilitarian to liberal, pragmatic to conservative—and emphasizes forming Christ-centered approaches to current social issues, including poverty and welfare systems, abortion, terrorism, gun control, and education.English Literature
This course seeks to answer our deepest, most important questions about life, death, love, and human beings by carefully studying some of the great stories, poems, and essays of the English language, starting with Beowulf and Sir Gawain, then looking at works by Chaucer, Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Eliot, and the Inklings.
Visiting Scholars
Dr. J.P. Moreland will join us for a week in which we set our three primary classes aside to think through the disciplines of Philosophy and Ethics. Dr. Moreland is a Distinguish Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He has benefited the Church with his writing which includes over 40 articles and numerous books including Scaling the Secular City, Does God Exist?, Body & Soul, Love Your God With All Your Mind, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, and The Lost Virtue of Happiness: Discovering the Disciplines of the Good Life.
Dr. Donald Williams joins us from Toccoa Falls College in Georgia where he serves as the Director of the School of Arts & Sciences and Associate Professor of English Literature. Dr. Williams spends a week with us and focuses our attention on English Literature, with particular attention to the challenges we face from the postmodernists. Both an accomplished poet and a literary critic, Dr. Williams is also a former president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society and an ordained minister. He lectures widely on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Among his many valuable books are Inklings of Reality and Is Man a Myth?.
Summit Semester
Snow Wolf Lodge and Pagosa Springs provide many extracurricular activities. Our game room in the main lodge contains a pool table, ping-pong table, and two foosball tables. Outside we have a basketball court, broomball equipment, Frisbee golf course, nearby trails and hundreds of acres for hiking in the San Juan National Forest.
In Pagosa Springs you will find the popular hot springs, shopping, scenic drives and hikes, and nearby attractions like Chimney Rock Archeological Site, Mesa Verde National Park, Great Sand Dunes National Park, as well as the mountain towns of Ouray, Silverton, and Durango. If it snows before the end of the semester (and it usually does), skiing at Wolf Creek or sledding on the Continental Divide will be available.
Summit Semester
Summit Semester is located at Snow Wolf Lodge in the remote mountain wilderness of the San Juan National Forest near Pagosa Springs, Colorado. Ours is an intentionally and carefully crafted biblical worldview community similar to Francis Schaeffer's L'Abri, where everyone on site will have daily responsibilities like meal preparation, cleaning, and routine facility maintenance. All of this will provide critical preparation needed for university life.
Snow Wolf Lodge provides two modern yet rustic buildings for our program. The female staff and students will live in the newest building, Blue Creek. This building provides 15 private rooms. Each female student will have one roommate. The large common area in Blue Creek serves as our classroom each morning and discussion area most evenings. The original structure on the site, our main lodge, houses the male staff and students as well as our kitchen, dining room, game room, book store, and library. The men will stay in large rooms with three to five roommates, each with their own desk and study area.
Students and guests traveling to Snow Wolf Lodge may either bus or fly into Durango, Colorado. We will provide transportation at no charge from Durango to Snow Wolf Lodge for all students and guests (about 1 hour and 30 minute travel time one way). Families may also drive to the Lodge, though students will not have use of their vehicles while attending Summit Semester (some exceptions allowed).
Summit Semester
- 1. If the program is not accredited, will I (my child) lose health insurance coverage?
- Summit Ministries' legal name is "American Christian College." So we are officially a college, doing business as "Summit Ministries." This helps with insurance issues. For our fall 2006 students, we sent letters on American Christian College letterhead to families in this position stating that their son or daughter was enrolled in American Christian College as a full-time student. Another issue regarding accreditation was resolved quite simply as well. We are not accredited, nor do we plan to be. But neither is Harvard. We have found in the past that simply mentioning that not all schools are accredited, including Harvard, some community colleges, and all trade schools, suffices for the purposes of retaining health insurance.
- 2. Why is Summit not offering college credit for this program?
- We know that character has as much to do with learning as it does every other area of life. Therefore, our main reason for not offering credit is to encourage students to appreciate the value of learning simply for the betterment of themselves and others. It is exciting to see students complete an assignment because they want to learn, rather than because they have to fill out a college transcript. Second, by not offering college credit we are free to run Summit Semester as we deem best, without following requirements imposed by colleges seeking to keep their accreditation. This flexibility allows us to move as quickly or slowly as the class needs. Third, we do not want students on two different tracks (some doing extra work for credits and others not), since this would detract from the cohesive student group we wish to create. Fourth, we are not looking for a large quantity of students - we only want to have 30 in our program at a time. This again contributes toward a very tightly knit group. Fifth, we do not want to add to the already high cost of the program, which would be required to earn credit. Sixth, only Christian colleges/universities grant credit for the kind of work our students are doing, which poses a problem for students seeking to attend some of the top schools in the country. Some Ivy League schools, along with other top institutions, will not accept transfer credits at all, while other schools balk at credits from a "religious" school.
Summit Semester
October 29, 2007
Dr. Bauman
When I first arrived in Pagosa Springs, I did not really have an idea of what I was getting myself into; I had never been to Snow Wolf Lodge, I did not know any other students very well, and I...