Because of increasing enrollment, Indiana’s graduation pathways, and student interest, next year’s course guide offers several new courses for students.

These new classes being offered are DC Sociology, Freshman Seminar, DC Speech, AP Pre-Calculus, and DC Chemistry. Among these classes, Freshman Seminar definitely stands out.

Freshman academic advisor, Micheal Roggenkamp, seems to agree with this sentiment saying, “The big one is Freshman Seminar – incoming freshmen will learn the BNI culture such as the fight song, the uniform, and resources in the buildings. They also learn about organization, time-management, etc.”

Freshman seminar is not new to Bishop Noll, though. The one-semester required course was instituted several years ago with the intent on helping incoming freshman prepare for high school academics, socal life, school culture, and overall maturity. The course was replaced by STEM: Introduction to Engineering.

Along with these additional classes, Speech will no longer be a required class that students have to take. It is not a required course by the Indiana Department of Education, although Bishop Noll made it required for the past several years.

“Speech changed because we wanted to incorporate Speech into their English classes,” says Mr. Roggenkamp. “Students who have already taken Speech will not be affected because they will learn Speech in their English classes.”
Interestingly, students seem to agree with this reasoning.

Without knowing why Speech was removed as a required class, Landon Wisler, who is a freshman currently taking Speech, said, “I think that Speech no longer being required makes sense. Learning how to give a proper Speech in front of an audience is an important skill, but I don’t think it needs to be required. Integrating Speech into English just a little bit would be sufficient.”