Bob Jones University Enters a New Era

Your reference to attendance/being late bolded, Larry.

I only referred to one of those things.

You see that class attendance and such is therefore a very weak predictor of academic success.

Where do we see this? Do you have a link to it?

Adults realize what they need to attend, and what they do not, and making a huge fuss about the matter, as is the case in the BJU handbook, will therefore serve mostly as an irritant.

Not sure this is true. I was just talking to an 80 year old man today who missed something pretty important because he didn’t know he needed to be there.

But I confess that the irony seems pretty thick: Students enroll in college to take a prescribed set of classes that has been prescribed by people with experience and since that is not enough, it is overseen by accrediting agencies to make sure it meets necessary standards. And yet we are to believe that 18 year olds with no life experience somehow know which class sessions they need to sit in on and which they can skip because they really won’t need it. I find that humorous.

I think one of the biggest differences here is that you guys tend to see adulthood as all or nothing based on a particular day when a person turns 18. I tend to see adulthood as a process (not always consistent) of maturing and learning to handle life oneself with wisdom.

If that person is sexually involved with someone under 18, or the draft is implemented (and he is male), the government identifies that person as such. It’s an objective legal determination, is it not?

Sure. So?

My point has nothing to do with legality. My point is about maturity and what qualfies one as “adult.”

If we assume that the 18 year olds entering a Christian college are from Christian homes, I would also assume that their parents have equipped them to be mature young adults. If they haven’t…..well shame on them!

Legality does factor in here, though. If someone passes a certain age, they get reality thrust upon them. If they aren’t mature enough, well, the school of hard knocks is one path to maturity, right?

Legality does factor in here, though. If someone passes a certain age, they get reality thrust upon them. If they aren’t mature enough, well, the school of hard knocks is one path to maturity, right?

Legality doesn’t factor in what I am saying.

But should we leave someone to the school of hard knocks? Or should we help disciple them to avoid some of that?

If they haven’t…..well shame on them!

Well, of course. But that ship has sailed. Now what?

[Larry]

But should we leave someone to the school of hard knocks? Or should we help disciple them to avoid some of that?

Everyone gets left to the hard knocks at some point. Even the most strict school won’t enforce study habits to the extent that you have to study or devote time to writing from x-y every day. At some point, individuals are left to discipline themselves or bear the consequences. It’s more a question of how much rope do you allow someone to hang themselves or not?

It’s more a question of how much rope do you allow someone to hang themselves or not?

Yes, it is. And there comes a time where learning and growth is not taking place and we allow them to experience the consequences.

But the attitude generally here seems to be that at 18 we cut them loose to learn on their own. I disagree with that. It also matters in a large group setting where standards are different than for small group settings. It seems like a lot of pie in the sky kind of idealism that simply isn’t reality. Your daughters are correct. Many people at that age are not adults because they aren’t prepared to handle life. Being 18 didn’t magically change that.

We’re comparing college students to octogenarians now, Larry? Huh?

I would also have thought that the relative lack of problems at MIT and Brown, given their Ivy League/nation-leading status, would be obvious, but apparently this is wishful thinking on my part. But since I apparently have to spell this out, the low dropout rates at these schools (92% graduate at MIT, 95% at Brown) bear witness to the fact that students there are, despite some occasionally skipping class for reasons not related to illness, are indeed graduating and going out into the world successfully.

In contrast, BJU’s graduation rate of 65.8% makes even my alma mater (78%) look good in comparison. One might infer that—beyond other obvious factors like “admitting lots of students who really ought to be proving themselves in community college first” (BJU admits 81% of applicants)—BJU’s policy of taking attendance (see the student handbook) might actually hinder student achievement. One of the ways we help young people mature is, after all, granting them the right to make some mistakes. Maybe BJU, and the fundamental community in general, ought to consider this.

:p

I stand by my statements in the context in which they were made. So there!

Some random thoughts:

The law is for the law-breaker. Those who have no desire to kill, steal, commit adultery, or break curfew are not overly concerned with those rules. The rules they worry about are the ones their flesh wants to break.

That’s one of the reasons Christian universities get bogged down with ‘standards’ of Christianity. They can only go after certain visible behaviors, but they can’t address the heart. IOW, are there rules requiring students exhibit the fruits of the Spirit? Of course not, because those are unenforceable. Those virtues are the work of the Holy Spirit, not the student handbook.

However, colleges will draw the line somewhere, and that’s the source of all this … discussion. We are trying to navigate a very complex set of parameters here, and there is no ‘right’ answer—just answers we are willing to live with.

From the article:

Christian parents who desire that their children continue their education in a safe environment that promotes Christ-likeness while earning a degree…

This is the point on which I think this issue hinges. When parents/students choose a college like BJU, they are buying the package deal. If I don’t want fries with my Happy Meal, I’m going to go elsewhere.

I would not encourage my kids to go to a school because of the Christian standards, (although I’ll grant the school environment can impact education) but because of the quality of their programs/degrees—IMO the primary purpose of school is education, not parenting, not discipleship, and especially not parenting students 18+ years old. But that’s because I believe the responsibility for the parenting of children is parents. Other people and institutions (like the church) can and should support, educate, encourage—but not step in and take over.

Schools like BJU tend to adjust the rules to address cultural trends, hence any old restrictions, from beards to round wire-frame glasses, become obsolete over time, as these things are not of themselves wrong—they were associated with certain undesirable cultural trends. Eliminating these standards is a good thing, because keeping them makes one look like a moron.

Hence, doing away with rules that are nothing more than a reaction to pop culture seems wise, or you are never going to have to stop adjusting/adapting your student handbook.

Soapbox alert: On modesty—I truly hate the way this topic is framed. Modesty is important because God demands it and it pleases Him, not because men may lust. And if modesty were enforced fairly and accurately (since modesty is about not drawing attention to oneself) there are a lot of men who would be in trouble about six times a day, and many of them are preachers who can’t stand to not be the center of attention in any room they are in, and the minute you express a thought or opinion with which they disagree, their retort is usually along the lines of ” Don’t you know who I am?”

Universities have to deal with what is, not with what you wish it to be or idealize it to be.

No kidding, but part of that is understanding the reality that not everyone who is there should be. Some people are going to be steamrolled by life and the fact that their immaturity is going to hurt them in major ways.

If young people are infantilized (and they are, but not just because of churches and parents), then all the more reason that colleges/universities need to maintain discipline for further training.

First of all, this isn’t an either / or proposition. No one is saying BJU needs no rules. I have worked in enough places (and written enough workplace policy) to know that.

Don, are schools like BJU there to build discipline or to educate? You have made several comments along this line now.

Furthermore, if these adults are as infantilized as you say they are, then we shouldn’t be sending them hundreds of miles away from home and spending upwards of $50k (or whatever it is) to teach them ‘discipline’. That is foolish and an irresponsible use of the money that God has entrusted us with. Those who are found wanting in small things aren’t handed more responsibility simply because they are 18 and should be in college now.

Proverbs is replete with warnings about foolish people who refuse instruction and the simple, who don’t value it. That’s a wisdom that they will need to obtain from the school of hard knocks.

[Larry]

Legality does factor in here, though. If someone passes a certain age, they get reality thrust upon them. If they aren’t mature enough, well, the school of hard knocks is one path to maturity, right?

Legality doesn’t factor in what I am saying.

…in a situation such as this:

How would you react if your local county attorney failed to charge, say, some 18, or 22, or 25, or 28, or whatever year old (the suspect in some terrible crime) as an adult, on the basis of, “he lacks the maturity to be an adult.”

In that situation, would you view adulthood as a objective standard (attainment of a specific legal age) or a subjective standard (degree of maturity)?

[Jay]

Don, are schools like BJU there to build discipline or to educate? You have made several comments along this line now.

What is education? Just filling heads full of facts?

I worked for a company (IKEA) that changed my method of training/teaching. My method used to entail telling people what to do and how to do it. The result was the perpetuation of the method and the assurance that things would never change (ah, security!). The down side was that they seldom, maybe never, learned why we did it that way. We also never considered that there might be a different and better way to do what we were doing. I changed my method of training. When someone would ask how to do something, I’d ask them how they thought it might be done and discussed the matter. This resulted in them having input into the process and of owning and understanding the way things were done. We even discovered better ways of doing things, for which we were rewarded. We wound up with a creative and motivated individual instead of a robot or a clone. If our method failed, we tried again and learned from the experience. The only people who don’t make mistakes are either not doing anything or they’re dead.

From my perspective, it seems that there is a tendency to protect children from exposure to failure. Scores aren’t kept and striking out isn’t allowed. Failure and hard knocks are beneficial. The Bible speaks of falling and getting up again. At 18, it’s time to take the training wheels off.

I know a guy who went off to college and majored in football and “college life” and flunked out. He finally smartened up, went back to school and got his degree. I shaved him this morning!

Per Ron’s comments about Ikea, when I was working at a little electronics factory, one thing I learned quickly was that in general, the hourly people doing the machining and assembly knew exactly what was wrong with the process. So when some of the failures of that process came to the NMR area (nonconforming material), my task was generally to print out the current instructions, figure out which operators were involved in building the bad product, and simply ask them about what they think caused it. 9 times out of ten, they solved my problem, and my only task remaining was to write up the changes they’d recommended into the build instructions and fill out my 8D report.

Few of these people had ever been to college, and many were high school dropouts. But when I gave them the chance to understand and improve the process, they were on it like a rottweiler on a t-bone. They wanted to be treated like adults, like people who were significant to the success of the company.

Give young people a chance to fail, a chance to grow up, a chance to learn that there are consequences to behavior. It’ll be a lot better than helicopter parenting or helicopter university administration.