DD just sent a picture. Rhodes College Chaplain’s office built on campus Sukkah! This is something. But their chaplain is unique… Chaplain is from NY City. Chaplain is a Catholic with Jewish dad…I love Rhodes more and more.
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You seemed very suspicious of Rhodes and were very upset about the need to take comparative religion classes. Those concerns been addressed?
Well… DD is not very happy with those classes. She is taking AMS track (more like cultural knowledge) and fumes how she needs to read 80-90 pages a day of something that she does not understand and not interested (mostly some Greek methology). She is treating it as necessary evil to graduate and get to medical school. But she likes school and students there and has many friends.
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No college is perfect - it sounds like she ended up in a great place.
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She’ll be grateful for a deep dive into Greek mythology during her residency. When a colleague tips her off about a nasty attending’s “Achilles heel” or describes an obnoxious department head as “a wannabee Icarus” she’ll get the reference immediately. Our culture is steeped in Greek mythology, even when you don’t understand the frame of reference!
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This sounds so ecumenical and wonderful to me.
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Yep…On our reseach trip to Rhodes she was a highlight. We were interested in Hillel and Jewish life and lady in jeans and turned around baseball hat said: "I am a chaplain, I can share my thoughts. " When we talked, I realized she knows way too much for Catholic chaplain about Passover, all Jewish traditions etc. I asked how she knows so much. Her answer was:“Oh, my dad was Jewish and I am from NY City…” 
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The old testament is part of Catholic studies too. My daughter held her own (and knew more than the girl who had just had her Bat Mitzvah) in her middle school religious studies unit.
Mythology will help her someday on jeopardy!
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I have a feedback she is so unintersted in it, that she will retain nothing. For her it is pure survival for a good grade. The only hope that study guide for a test will help to pass it…
My other DD is interested in all legends and knows all Greek and Roman gods. You are either interested or not. I think it can be usefull for general education but I know DD at Rhodes would trade these classes for anything to avoid them.
For me Greek Mythology was tough to get my arms around I felt like Sisyphus😀
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I think DD will feel the same once she will learn who is Sisyphus. They will be reading Homer this semester. It will be very difficult for her to have 3 semesters of this… I hope required humanities will not break her and her GPA. There are so many of them required at Rhodes. She is not humanity person…
I think that we all take classes like that - but if college is to teach you to think, interpret, and write, there will still be value - more than she even thinks.
Plus, she’ll be better at Jeopardy when she’s watching in 10 years. She’ll retain more than she thinks.
But I think no matter where you go, regardless of the subject, everyone takes classes that they’re - ehhhhh - about.
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I agree. But in some cases you can avoid them. Not in case of Rhodes…
But I tell DD that these AMS classes are her training for future to study what you do not necessary like and something hard to understand. I am sure she will face many such subjects in medical school.
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Was this the chaplain you were. referencing?
I know you were concerned about some of the mandatory comparative religion classes. At least they seem to be offering alternative subject matter😀
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Yep, unfortunately. Students were in shock. All local news showed up. I have no idea where was her brain. It is Memphis, not CA…And school pretends to be conservative 
with mandatory religious/ or religion related classes. Students are just hoping that she will not loose her job. She is a great person and chaplain.
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Yep, people get tied up in knots over these things.
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I think this is the type of thing that should be investigated. Who paid for the ‘speaker’? Who wanted this? What did it have to do with the program the chaplain is supposed to run?
I’d be an unhappy parent paying for this type of program
So you think the chaplain should be “bound” to a specific curriculum?
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Let’s make sure not to let this tangent dominate the conversation. Would take someone pretty sadistic to do that.
Sorry for waxing on. I am done.