New Orleans (BP)—At a time when gasoline prices are crimping budgets, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary has taken steps to ease the burden on students and make theological education more accessible.

The efforts include a new online commuter connection center to aid in establishing carpools, a one-year exemption of the online course restrictions for main campus students, and Wednesday schedule changes. The cost-saving steps are designed to relieve some of the financial strain on commuter students throughout the seminary system.

“We want to be responsive to our commuter students, whether they are extension center students or students coming to the New Orleans campus,” noted Steve Lemke, the seminary’s provost. Increased fuel cost “is something we are all experiencing, but the burden falls much harder on our commuting students. We want students to know that we are doing all we can to mitigate the dramatic increase in costs that they are experiencing.”

A student with a 100-mile round-trip commute could spend several hundred dollars during a semester to travel to campus just one day a week, Lemke pointed out. The financial burden rises with each additional trip. And it is not uncommon for commuter students to travel to campus two or three days each week.

Through the online commuter connection forum, students may log in to the seminary’s Web system to find other commuters from their area. The forum allows students to respond to carpooling requests and post new requests.

While many commuters already carpool, Lemke said he hopes the commuter connection will facilitate even more ride sharing for the seminary’s main campus or any of its extension center campuses.

“It is a way to help our students be good stewards of their own resources and of the environment,” he explained.

The second initiative is a one-year exception to a rule prohibiting New Orleans students from taking online classes. In the past, on-campus and commuter students have not been allowed to take online classes.

“First of all, on-campus students have greater access to the courses they need,” Lemke noted.

“Secondly, the seminary receives no SBC funding at all for Internet courses, whereas the SBC provides maximum funding for master’s-level on-campus students,” Lemke added. “In order to keep the regular tuition affordable for everyone, we had to limit who takes the Internet courses.”

But in light of the increased gasoline costs, Lemke said seminary administrators decided to lift the restriction for one year.

A third initiative concerns changes in the Wednesday schedule at the New Orleans campus. Beginning with the fall semester, the seminary halted Wednesday chapel services at the main campus. Many commuter students were unable to attend chapel because they opted for a Tuesday-Thursday-only class schedule. The move opens the 11 a.m. Wednesday period for additional course offerings, making it easier for commuter students or other on-campus students to meet full-time course load requirements by taking classes just two days a week.

“Our hope is that all three of these moves will help our students overcome increased travel costs without slowing the theological education into which God has called them,” Lemke said.