For Assistant Head of School for Academics Mr. Patrick Sillup, the new offerings are long past due for Malvern students. 

“I would love guys to be learning with girls, I would love girls to be learning with guys,” Sillup said. “I feel like we owe it to [the students] to have an experience.”

That new experience Sillup is talking about is a new offering for Malvern students seeking to earn college credits outside of Malvern. 

“It will be Villa girls, Malvern guys, it will be on Villa’s campus, it will be in the first block of the day, and it will be dual enrollment in the sense that they will be taught by an Immaculata professor,” Sillup explained.

The courses, Accounting and Budgeting, Introduction to Data Analysis, Storytelling with Data, and World Religions, would all run on a semester based format.

Because the courses running would be college courses, students would earn three credits, as opposed to one if they were taking a class at Malvern. 

Additionally, students will have to pay extra for these courses, though, Sillup says, the fee is not as high as it could be.

“[The courses] come at a cost of $300 per course, which is significantly less than if you were to think about that just as a off the street,” he said. 

The biggest difficulty with taking a college course wouldn’t be the money, however, it would be the scheduling adjustments.

Simply put, “[the students] are going to have to navigate the idea of being off-campus and on-campus,” Sillup said.

However, Sillup does have a solution for that. 

“Because these are dual-enrollment, [those students will] now be carrying five blcoks at Malvern. Because [they’re] carrying five, [they] now have three open blocks rotating through also,” he said. 

“[They] also only [have] a two day commitment, which means [they are] always here on that Friday to make up, to connect, to review whatever class [they] might’ve missed,” Sillup continued.

The three mathematically based classes — Accounting and Budgeting, Introduction to Data Analysis, and Storytelling with Data — come from many students being disinterested in traditional mathematic tracks, and wish to pursue something different.

“If you’re not on the BC Calc track, you’re not imagining yourself in Honors Stat, well maybe you try Accounting,” Sillup said. “If you see yourself doing Business School in college, try it.”

Another opportunity that the college courses would give to students is the opportunity to show colleges just how interested they are in their future major.

“My hope within it too is that it helps guys tell their own stories. We’ve had a lot of guys this past fall thinking about Business School, et cetera,” Sillup said. “I would love a guy to say ‘Yes, I am really interesting in business school, I’m so interested that I’m taking an Accounting and Budgeting class right now, to show you that this is where I want to go.’”

For Sillup, the biggest part about offering new courses is keeping Malvern’s identity, but expanding what it can offer its students.

“We’re still an all-boys school, we’re still an all-boys environment, but I just feel like we’ve done things at different times, exchanges, et cetera; but, can we also learn together, and I think that pay a lot of benefit as well,” he said.