The “Virtual Campus” arrives at the John Paul II Institute

Personalized study plans, teaching in four languages and a “virtual campus” that will allow students to attend online courses from all over the world: these are just some of the new features introduced by the John Paul II Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences starting from next academic year.

The health emergency caused by the pandemic has, for the Institute recently reformed by Pope Francis, become an opportunity to live up to its challenge: that of bringing the studies on marriage and the family out into the open from the closed “garden”, which reduced marriage and the family to one of the many chapters of Catholic doctrine and morality, and of rediscovering the centrality of marriage and the family in human society and in the experience of faith.

“The context we are living in”, explains the President of the Institute, Msgr. Pierangelo Sequeri, “imposes unusual procedures for the carrying out of academic activity. For the moment it is difficult to predict the duration and terms of the process of returning to normality: it seems reasonable, however, to envisage a not short period of recourse to alternative methods of work that guarantee teaching even “at a distance” with the aid of appropriate telematic means”.

Personalized Study Plan

The John Paul II Institute issues Licentiate and Doctorate degrees with both theological-pastoral and anthropological-cultural focus and allows students to customize their study plan, taking into account their own academic curriculum (for example, teaching experience, previously acquired skills and qualifications); thus allowing for a flexibility and optimisation of studies, with equal scientific and educational rigor. Diploma courses for more specific pastoral and social subjects in the areas of spiritual accompaniment, pastoral counselling, family mediation and the like will also remain available.

The Virtual Campus

The great novelty of the academic year 2020-21 is the activation of a virtual Campus that – alongside the traditional classroom lessons – will allow courses to be taken from all over the world, thanks to an online teaching platform available in four languages: Italian, English, French and Spanish.

The Virtual Campus is fruit of the collaboration between the John Paul II Institute and the Catholic University of Murcia, Spain.

“Teachers and students,” explains Monsignor Sequeri, “will be able to benefit from a more up-to-date know-how, with the aim of facilitating learning by using the resources that technology makes available. Students will be able to access all the content of the Campus at any time, whilst also benefiting from a dedicated channel for communication with teachers via email or private chat”.

“An unaltered quality of teaching, compared to typical classroom teaching, will remain guaranteed,” adds the President, “facilitating the student who, for a variety of reasons, is prevented from physically reaching the Institute”.

For information and enrolment, please consult the website www.istitutogp2.it