transfer students – Houghton STAR

By Anna Catherman ('24)

Senior Rachel Wells took Transitions this Fall 2023 semester.

Wells came to Houghton from New York City, where she’d attended The King’s College for two years. When King’s shuddered due to financial woes, Houghton offered a generous teach out program, making it a clear choice. But it still wasn’t easy for Wells to start over in a new place for the second time in three years.

Wells grew up in suburban Florida—vastly different from both New York City and Houghton.

She didn’t tour King’s, and had only spent half a day in New York City before moving there.

Wells said that her new life “did not feel real for a very long time.”

Thrust into not only starting classes, Wells also had to learn how to grocery shop, cook, and make friends in a place where she knew no one. She contracted COVID-19 in her first month and had to spend time in isolation, which worsened her homesickness. But she pushed through, and in time, grew to enjoy living within walking distance of Battery Park and its views of the Statue of Liberty.

By her second year, Wells said she found she “actually love[d] living in the city.”

Highlights included her college professors, classmates, prayer group, babysitting, and studying at the city’s many coffee shops. She enjoyed King’s unique culture of debate and friendly competition, tutoring her housemates to win a writing contest. It was the only contest the House of Queen Elizabeth won in her time there.

However, the year was fraught with tension as King’s financial woes slowly became public.

Zoom calls with executives became routine. The interim president, Steven French, said that more money was needed to finish the semester. Students began getting rent notices for their college housing. Yet through May 2023, the school claimed no intention to close.

Then King’s announced no classes would be taught in the 2023-2024 school year.

Forced to transfer somewhere else, Wells “eventually came around to the idea of Houghton.” Many of Wells’ family members have attended Houghton University.

Wells misses the iced oat milk lattes at Olive’s, her favorite coffee shop; her babysitting job; and her former professors and classmates. But she’s found new people —and drink orders—at Houghton.

Wells really enjoys chapels. “Hot take, I guess?” she chuckled, acknowledging that many students don’t feel the same way.

And Wells has had a blast at Houghton’s events, including intramural water polo.

Wells hopes to return to New York City from time to time to visit friends, although she plans to move home to Florida after graduation. There, she wants to teach alongside her high school English teacher.

Ultimately? She’d like to be Dr. Wells.

She asks herself, “should you be saying that right now because you’re an undergraduate?” But she still dreams. ★

The Honors curriculum at Houghton underwent changes this semester. Weekly seminars, and a new, reemphasized, London curriculum are among the latest expansions, along with a proposal for a curriculum aimed at transfer students.

The Honors department’s decision to add weekly seminars materialized from honors students wishing that their first-year experiences did not have to end. Traditionally, first years go through an intense curriculum that doesn’t fit their schedule into their sophomore year. The curriculum’s emphasis has always been on “radically developmental experiences,” said Professor Benjamin Lipscomb, director of honors.

In order to keep the structure of the Honors present through the rest of their college experience, Lipscomb designed weekly seminars so that Honors students could get together and discuss challenging topics. “Students from different tracks and years mix together, studying topics of special interest to the faculty teaching them,” Lipscomb said.

The new London curriculum is also an exciting extension of the honors offerings. While it isn’t the same curriculum it used to be, Honors in London still embodies what study abroad semesters are all about: developmental experiences. “Students gain greatly from settling down in a foreign context for a longer period, from learning to navigate it independently to encountering the resources of world-class galleries and museums,” said Lipscomb.

The semester abroad in London might not have returned if it wasn’t for its powerful appeal to prospective students. No other college does anything like this. “It’s a highly distinctive offering that helps lodge Houghton’s name in the minds of prospective students,” stated Lipscomb. Honors in London gets prospective students to take a closer look at Houghton and the integrated, interdisciplinary curricula that the college has to offer and they could be a part of.

The proposal for Honors curricula intended for transfer students is waiting to be approved for next fall. The first-year curricula could not be used because they are built around the college’s core requirements, which many transfers complete at previous institutions before coming to Houghton. Also, a transfer student is more likely to be in a different place “developmentally and socially,” than a first-year student, said Lipscomb. Thus the need for different course offerings.

The transfer curriculum would entail one six-hour course to be taken in the fall; a little less rigorous compared to first-year students whose curriculum lasts the full academic year. The curriculum combines biblical studies and theology, since those are requirements most transfers have not satisfied yet. Lipscomb said the “Reduced size and the fall semester placement are both acknowledgments of the needs of transfers, as is the pairing of disciplines.”

Ryan Spear, Associate Director of Admissions, thinks that the recent and potential changes to the Honors offerings will benefit current and prospective students. Spear concluded, “Houghton has a great reputation for offering unique learning opportunities and the expansion of our Honors offerings is a great way to reflect this culture.”