When 17 Wittenberg students signed up for Assistant Professor of English Fitz Smith’s WittSem course titled “A Few Ideas That Changed The World: Christianity, Democracy and the Self,” it was simply their way of filling an academic requirement. Little did they know that the course would change their lives by leading them on a journey of self-exploration.

A regular listener to NPR’s “This I Believe,” Smith incorporated a similar project into his WittSem, an integrated learning course taken during freshman year, by creating the “Believe in Belief” project. Smith asked his students, who came from differing backgrounds, to write an essay that examined their morals and values in-depth.

“‘Believe in Belief’ doesn’t allow for generalizations,” Smith said. “Students have to be specific in their ref lection, but there is enough leeway for creativity while still getting to a specific point.”

As the course concluded, the students’ essays were submitted to the show’s producers in hopes they would be selected to be read on-air (anyone who had an essay selected automatically received an A on the project). Out of the 17 students in the class, 16 also volunteered to read their essays in class, creating a bond as the students saw one another as more than just another stereotyped classmate.

“[The project] turned into an amazing, tremendous experience for me as a teacher, and for the students,” Smith said. “It’s not something they took lightly, and I would be willing to wager that every student could remember the essays of at least three other students. It turned the class into a group of people, rather than anonymous humans.”