A Failure to Stay the Course [Handbook changes at BJU]

When the motto was “The World’s Most Unusual University” I remember a student being asked “What’s unusual about the place?” and being told, “You have no idea.”

[Don Johnson]

Dave, I don’t think BJU’s standards ever insisted that skirts be below the ankle. Look at the 1920s pictures if you can find them.

I’ve seen them, and yes, I wasn’t clear there, but you got the point I was making that there has been change from that time to our time, and as you said, it’s not really the dress standards themselves that are supposed to be the point of the article in question. However, changes to those particular standards are almost always used as the launching point to start discussing BJU having slipped, and in this case, the author doesn’t really move on to other specifics, so we’re left to wonder what the actual problems are.

However, you are still talking about the dress standards. I recognize there can and will be change in standards, and such changes are NOT a deviation from holiness. I think my friend Travis does also, and I think he said so, albeit not as directly. So the whole conversation of dress standards seems to me to be totally outside the point.

So let’s discuss what you think is his actual point. Rereading the article, the author mentions “pragmatism,” “drift from core principles,” and “continuing pattern of change,” but outside the dress standards he discusses, he doesn’t give any other concrete examples. He also mentions “distinctive disciplines,” but also fails to give an example.

Perhaps it’s the changes I mentioned above that I found good (the less-adversarial aspect of student discipleship and discipline, or even changes like dropping the interracial dating ban) that he actually finds disturbing, but he doesn’t come out and say that. If his point is not the dress standards, why not just name the actual changes he means? Without that, we’re left to think he either 1. actually means the dress standards, or 2. he doesn’t want to name the real problems.

So in your view, if he doesn’t mean the dress standards, what pragmatism is he calling out? What distinctive disciplines have been lost? And what changes are bad? You are quite correct that his article is less than clear. As we used to say, it’s “as clear as mud.”

P..S. I’m not that fond of the new emphasis on the “Bruins” intercollegiate sports program myself. But is that really evidence of “drift from core principles?” Except for the way we market things 90 years later, an intercollegiate sports program is actually a return to what they had at the beginning. But that’s probably not his point either, and I’m just projecting.

I suspect that every change at BJU has produced negative criticism. I know people who were angry when BJU started admitting married black students, started admitting single black students, and jettisoned the racist dating rule. I have friends who are still upset at the changes in the dining common, at changes in dating rules, and at mixed couples being able to leave campus unchaperoned.

I wonder if the writer of the article that created this discussion is going return his honorary doctorate.

I understand the political realities university presidents have to deal with as they seek to implement change. Whether it’s “right” or not, you have to consider the impact on your ecclesiastical base when you make certain decisions. If you alienate your constituency, then you may not have good enrollment for very long. I’m guessing this is why, for example, Maranatha still requires the KJV for use in the classroom and (I believe) at chapel. I get that. Political and practical realities are real things, and anyone who discounts them is living in a land of abstractions.

That makes me even more appreciative that Pettit, Marriott and Tillotson are making sweeping and forward-thinking changes at their respective institutions to position their universities for the future. It takes real leadership and courage to make calculated changes, even though key components of your constituency might become upset. They’re making the changes anyway, and patiently explaining why to those who have ears to hear. I think they’re succeeding.

Ron Bean, why are people upset about changes in the Dining Hall? Is it because there are few, if any “family style” meals anymore? Something else?

Tyler, I agree with you about the changes at the schools you mentioned. They must change - they must adapt to the present with looking forward to the future. For too long, Fundamentalism has had this weird sense of status quo, isolationism, and stubborn resistance to change and input from outside the bubble. In my opinion, that is not utilizing the gifts, skills, and talents the Lord has given us. That isolationism is like the servant who buried the money given him by his master and was condemned for it.

The trick is to make the needed changes in a way that most of your constituency will support. Contrast the changes by the leaders you mentioned to what NIU tried to do a few years ago. It seemed like NIU either didn’t know what they were doing or didn’t care - or both, and paid dearly for it.

The negative comments I heard about the dining common were in two areas. One was that students no longer would know the experience of dressing up for a sit-down meal. The other, and more frequent, was that students would no longer get the opportunity to meet other students. That one was a puzzlement.

[Ron Bean]

When the motto was “The World’s Most Unusual University” I remember a student being asked “What’s unusual about the place?” and being told, “You have no idea.”

Well, based on the response my question received on this thread, there’s not really been anything unique about BJU, at least not in my lifetime. There have been other fundamentalist schools that had high standards of conduct and dress and a rigid disciplinary system. Yet those institutions make changes and there’s virtual silence, but when BJU changes “fundamentalism as we know it is coming to an end!”

I just don’t get this point of view. BJU is not fundamentalism. BJU does not control the destiny of the next generation of fundamentalists. So why all the hand-wringing?

Note: I get why alumni might have disagreements about the decisions of the current administration, and why they may want to voice them to other alumni or even to current school admin.

My comment on the “unusualness” of BJU was meant to illicit a smile and not put any of us on the defensive. I think we’ll all admit that a student coming from a public university to BJU would find assigned seating for meals, a life controlled by bells from morning till evening, mandated ties on men, music checks, haircut checks, the snail trail, etc. somewhat unusual. I was one of those students who made the transition willingly and with some hidden amusement. I enjoyed my time there and am proud again of my alma mater. BTW, when I talk to students who are there today and tell them about the old days, they smile too.

…..that seems to rarely be thought of or mentioned anymore is the switch from holding “Campus Church” on Sunday mornings to students being able to attend & serve at a local-area church of their choosing (although I think their “choices” are still subject to some degree of approval) :

https://www.bju.edu/admission/admitted-students/choosing-a-church.php

I stayed on the BJU campus (in Brokenshire Hall) for 3 or 4 nights in the summer of 1989. Being there over a weekend, I remember attending the campus church in FMA (I think; I don’t think it was in Rodeheaver) on a Sunday morning. Bob Jones Jr. preached. Being one who is invariably early wherever I go, I was ushered to a seat in the front row….. =)

I’m not sure how long ago the campus church was done away with.

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Pensacola Christian College still has their “Campus Church” (which does not operate under a Baptist polity model of church government, regardless of what they may, or may not, say about it):

http://www.pcci.edu/SpiritualLife/CampusChurch.aspx

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What are anyone’s else’s thoughts/memories about this change?

Obviously there are more ways to meet people than the dining common, but the old family style meal had the benefit of forcing mingling with people outside your clique. A frequent complaint of young people we have had at the University (not just my own kids, but them too) is that it was difficult to meet people outside your own major, unless it was a few roommates and people living near you in the dorms. Consequently, students tend to eat meals within the same cliques and form their own culture unto themselves in that part of life. There is nothing wrong with hanging around with your friends, but…

In our day, every three weeks or so, we all rotated to a new table assignment. Upper classmen were host and hostess at the table, their job was to get everyone to introduce themselves at the beginning of the rotation, to encourage conversation, etc. You met folks from all kinds of other majors, made friends, in many cases eventually marriages were the result of a dining common table introduction. Most of all, while you had your own set of friends, you had a wide array of acquaintances who you knew as more than just an acquaintance. It was one of the best features of campus life.

Ron, I don’t think you were an undergraduate student there. I don’t think you had this experience. I seem to recall that your wife worked in the Dining Common, so ask her. Many of the people I know from BJU were first met in the Dining Common.

Now, change happens. Before my time, all three meals were family style meals. Took a lot of organization, I am sure. I think those in charge thought changing the DC was needed, but they lost a significant part of the culture by doing it.

I don’t know for sure, but my observation is that far fewer graduates come out married from BJU these days (of course there are still many marriages). Perhaps one of the reasons is there isn’t as much mixing and mingling. After all, some majors are predominantly occupied by women - they go with the same girls to most of their classes, make good friendships, do things together, but are “anonymous” to a lot of the young men. That’s too bad.

Now that’s not the only reason for this problem, but I think it contributes to it.

Just to clarify, my first exposure to BJU was as a new Christian who, at the time, was a full time student at the University of Maine. (Go Black Bears!!!) My sister was a student there and I took a week and a half off from classes to visit the campus and stay in the dorm. I loved the nightly prayer meetings, the classes, chapel, the students, and the dining common (I like buttermilk and I was upset when they stopped serving it!). I did, however, find the regimen I referred to earlier as “unusual” but not enough so that it kept me from applying. (I did find the old “pole showers” in the men’s dorms a little creepy. Communal athletic showers were something I was used to but this was something I’d never seen before.)

Greg Easton, a few times on one of his many blog posts about BJU, referred to those pole showers. The shower heads, of which, worked at varying degrees of spreading out the water spray. Apparently he and others referred to certain showers where the water shot out in more of a thin, solid, & piercing stream as [Aaron moderated. A bit crude… imagination will suffice]:-)!

[mmartin]

Greg Easton, a few times on one of his many blog posts about BJU, referred to those pole showers. The shower heads, of which, worked at varying degrees of spreading out the water spray. Apparently he and others referred to certain showers where the water shot out in more of a thin, solid, & piercing stream as … :-)!

And please hope that no one flushes the toilet when you were under one of those showers, ouch!!!

Ah yes, the good ol’ family style evening meal, all dressed up in coat & tie….

As Don mentioned, upper classmen served as host/hostess & often got the “let’s socialize” ball rolling. My freshman year, I roomed with a senior Bible major who served as table host. So, what he liked to do to start things off well was float a question for discussion. One of them was, “Do you believe in mixed bathing?” Then he’d sit back & enjoy the North-South conflict ensue around the table. Then when everyone had his say, he’d ask, “Well, how do you feel about mixed swimming, then?”

True story…and he never got shipped, either!