Senior Anthony Kemp has anticipated a day like this since freshman year. He came to Biola with a passion for film, literature, the Bible and artistic expression, excited about Biola’s mission to “integrate major fields of study within a Biblical worldview.”

Although he says his overall experience has generally met this expectation, his day-to-day classroom experience has not. That’s why he is so excited about IRIS, a new class being offered this coming Interterm.

IRIS stands for Integrated Reflections on Interdisciplinary Studies and is focused on addresses important issues through the use of film.

“Rarely do we, the students, have the opportunity to sit in a single class session and witness several professors from various disciplines interact in a collaborative setting [to] discuss topics like film, art, theology and faith,” Kemp said. “IRIS, however, now exists to provide that space.”

Traditional higher education, according to Torrey professor Paul Spears, who holds a doctorate in education philosophy, is defined as “rigorous narrow specialization focusing on research and publications.” Though universities like Harvard and UC Berkeley are touted as academic pinnacles of specialization, Spears’ longtime dream is to revisit and revive the classic ideal of collaborative education. He will do so as a discussion leader for IRIS.

“This interterm class is exciting,” Spears said, “because it pushes against this conception of education and models a liberal educational project that is integrative, dialog driven, interactive, and pedagogically unique for the students as they observe faculty in dialog with one another wrestling with ideas that are central to the pursuit of a flourishing Christian life.”

Biola has committed to this distinctive enterprise: seven professors, six units and four departments. Students who sign up for the course will commit 70 classroom hours, three winter weeks and $3012.

Not bad for watching eleven films with Jonathan Anderson, art professor and faculty facilitator for IRIS.

“Visual art — especially film, painting, photography, sculptural installation, and architecture — is one of the most significant arenas in which a culture is very directly attempting to make sense of the world in expressly spatial-bodily terms,” Anderson said. “The creation of images and the structuring of spaces is not merely a tangential, marginal activity.”

Students can experience the power of story with Dr. Aaron Kleist, Cambridge-educated professor and chairman of the English Department, and the brain behind IRIS.

“Stories — the best stories, at any rate — captivate, convey philosophical depths, capture and illumine aspects of the world deeply familiar to us but which we might not have recognized before,” Kleist said. “It’s no wonder, therefore, that Christ’s parables provide some of his most profound teachings, or that the attention of young and old is riveted by a sentence that begins, ‘Once upon a time.’”

This is an opportunity for gleaning theological insights from the respected Biblical Studies professor Dr. Erik Thonnes, who became involved because he believes “every discipline should be grounded in good theology and good theology must consider every discipline.”

These classes are meant to cultivate perspective by distancing students from their views long enough to explore and understand the views of another.

“The energy that is created between two or three professors interacting is energizing to both the professors and students,” said Dr. Tim Muehlhoff, professor of communication and within IRIS.

Not bad for exploring the justice and relief of comedy led by Melissa Schubert, a Torrey tutor with her master’s degree in literature.

“Comedy gives time for healing, for correction, for redemption,” Schubert said. “The comic realm is one of life, not death; of plentitude, not abyss.”

Not bad for capturing a vision of the goodness of God with Dr. Rick Langer, Talbot professor and 2008 winner of the Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Theological Integration.

“If your eyes are good,” Jesus said in Matthew 6:22, “your whole body will be full of light.”

That’s why they call it IRIS.