A more streamlined curriculum with greater focus on world religions is now being offered by West Virginia Universitys Program for Religious Studies.

I realized that our religious studies curriculum needed to be updated in order to better fit the model of a more contemporary major,said associate professor Aaron Gale, coordinator of religious studies at WVU .

Our new curriculum brings us up to speed with other programs across the country and also makes us much more compatible with other majors in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences here at WVU .

The new curriculum for the religious studies major requires 30 credit hours of study, as opposed to 42 under the previous requirements. This makes the major much more compact, meaning more students can add religious studies as a second major, Gale said.

Requirements for the religious studies minor have also been simplified. To earn the minor, students need five courses, three of which must be at the 300 or 400 levels, with a grade of C or better in all of the classes.

This simplified curriculum will greatly aid students who want to minor in religious studies,Gale said.It will also make it much easier for multidisciplinary students to pick up religious studies as one of their three minor disciplines.

All new students accepted into the program will be advised under the new major curriculum. Students currently majoring in religious studies will have the opportunity to change over to the new major. Those with a minor in religious studies will immediately follow the new curriculum.

Religious studies faculty members made the recent changes to the curriculum because it had not been modified in many decades, and students have expressed an increased desire to learn more about religions across the world. Many students who take one of the traditional courses, such as Studies in Hebrew Scriptures or History of Christianity, have been asking about how they can learn more about other world religions such as Buddhism or Hinduism, Gale said.

WVU s religious studies program now offers courses such as Introduction to World Religions, Religions of China and Japan, Islam and Near Eastern Religions and a new special topics course, Religion in Communist China. Other new courses include Introduction to World Religions, Christianity in America, Biblical History/Archaeology and Religion Across Cultures.

A primary goal in the religious studies program at WVU is to meet the contemporary needs of our students, and the new curriculum allows for students to immerse themselves in the religions and cultures involved in major historical events,Gale said.For the last several years, students have been requesting more courses in religious studies, and after Sept. 11, interest in the study of world religions such as Islam and Judaism skyrocketed.

Many students already studying in the program are excited that they have the opportunity to take new courses, he said.

In addition, the Program for Religious Studies will begin offering online courses this fall through WVU Extended Learning. The first course will be RELG 102 (Introduction to World Religions). Students will be able to earn a minor in religious studies online. The new minor curriculum makes it simpler to offer the necessary courses, Gale said. In the near future, faculty hope to add RELG 219 : The History of Christianity and RELG 303 and 304: Introduction to Christian and Hebrew Scriptures, along with a few others.

To complement their studies, some WVU students are participating in a summer study abroad program to the University of Szeged in Hungary, and several students recently volunteered at an archaeological dig in Israel at the biblical city of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee.

We hope that our new major and minor, our online courses and study abroad opportunities will make our program much more appealing to students at WVU ,Gale said.Students can now explore the worlds religious traditions within the confines of an intensive program of study. We are creating and offering new courses all the time.

For more information, about the Program for Religious Studies at WVU , contact Gale at Aaron.Gale@mail.wvu.edu or visithttp://www.wvu.edu/~relst.