Course Subject
The Wilmette Institute has the following programs and departments:
Baha'i History, Texts and Tenets
Bahá'í History, Texts and Tenets (certificate program and extension courses)
Religion, Theology and Philosophy (certificate program courses and extension courses)
Independent Sections (extension courses)
Social Transformation
Social Transformation (certificate program and extension courses)
Relationships, Marriage and Family (extension courses)
Over the years the Wilmette Institute has offered a wide variety of courses, and WI expects to continue to diversify as the global Plans develop. Sometimes WI will identify a topic for a course and sometimes people will propose courses to develop. In the latter case, all proposals must be approved by the Director.
Sometimes the course subject is simple; it will use a particular book as the primary text for the course and the course will follow the book. The Wilmette Institute does offer courses where one book is the primary text and its author is the primary or sole faculty member. However, a course cannot be used to promote a book, but to promote the ideas and concerns the book covers because they are of importance to the Bahá'í community. This is a subtle point that authors should consider carefully. Usually it is preferable that a course use more than one source, even if most of the course focuses on one book, because a diversity of perspectives is important.
Course developers will be asked to provide a one- or two-paragraph course description while filling in the course development template. Eventually, developers should write up a five-sentence description, which may be edited by the Wilmette Institute staff for marketing purposes, but the description at this point can be longer. One way of writing a good course summary is to explain why the subject is important to the Bahá'í community and list the topics that the various study units will cover.
All course topics must be approved by the Secretary of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the United States.
Course Content
Course developers should answer the following questions that impact content selection:
How does the course build human capacity to contribute to social discourse and the community building process at the grassroots (e.g., core activities) and/or other intimate spaces?
How much of the course includes the Baha'i Writings and guidance from the international and/or national Baha'i institutions?
How much of the course is dedicated to looking beyond analysis of the problem to focus on solutions?
Answers to these questions will vary greatly among course developers, so they should be discussed with WI administrators to come up with adequate responses for the course being proposed.
Another aspect of content selection is that it should be current. Participants expect to talk about current events and nearly all topics can be explored from their implications for current events.
For guidance about the quantity of content, please see the Methodology page.
Revised: 06/23/2022