--Physical contact between male and female students is forbidden there. A male student and his girlfriend were both expelled from PCC because he patted her butt in public.
--Staircases and elevators are segregated by gender; women may not use men's staircases and vice versa.
--Students are not allowed to listen to any music except classical and gospel. They are permitted to watch the 6:00 news on college-owned TVs, but no other television and no movies period. Commercials are blocked out when they watch the news.
--Books other than those in the school library must be approved by the college before students may own them.
--Students of opposite gender are not allowed to meet off-campus, even by coincidence. Once a group of guys and a group of girls met by chance in a nearby McDonald's and sat down together. All 15 students were expelled.
The list goes on and on. I can't believe that there are 5,000 young people in this country willing to cede responsibility for every detail of their lives to this school. Obviously the place is legal, and should be. But what are these kids thinking?
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Are you implying that it's ok for women and men to be in the same room, alone? Or worse -- an elevator? Elevators are the devil's gift to mankind. Girl jeans are the devil's horns.
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Sounds almost like 2 years of my life Except I didn't get to watch the news....those lucky sons of guns.
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It's an unaccredited school. It seems to be an unhealthy environment,but unless anyone is forcing them to attend and abide by the rules, I say live and let live.
I don't see the difference between that kind of school and a monastary.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote: I can't believe that there are 5,000 young people in this country willing to cede responsibility for every detail of their lives to this school. Obviously the place is legal, and should be. But what are these kids thinking?
It's more than 5000 students because Pensacola's not the only school out there like that. I know of a couple in Virginia. Although not nearly as bad as Pensacola, I always find it amusing to read about Liberty University's dress code and reprimand system - Liberty also has the distinction of being accredited. 6 reprimands and a $25 fine for going to a dance.
I also remember meeting a couple of girls from Liberty at a hockey game while I was in college. They were very upfront about saying they attend every off-campus athletic event possible, because it's pretty much the only way they could get off campus stay out past curfew without getting reprimanded.
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That's pitiful. And they named this place Liberty? Someone needs to hook Falwell up with a dictionary and a stomach pump.
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Irami: it appears the school encourages backstabbing and suspicion, rather unlike the typical monastery.
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Except for a few very strictly cloistered orders, monastaries are hospitable to visitors of either gender. Only the private areas are gender-segregated. And they allow TV watching.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Oh my. That's...very odd. Some of it's amusing, like this (emphasis mine):
quote: Even couples who are not talking or touching can be reprimanded. Sabrina Poirier, a student at Pensacola who withdrew in 1997, was disciplined for what is known on the campus as "optical intercourse" staring too intently into the eyes of a member of the opposite sex. This is also referred to as "making eye babies."
But the idea that they're serious about these regulations is a little frightening.
(I couldn't read the article from the link, btw; I had to look it up through my university's library site - it's on Lexis-Nexis, if anyone else has that problem.)
On a sidenote, I don't understand why some students choose to attend unaccredited colleges. Some of the kids from the Pensacola article didn't know about accreditation when they enrolled, so they kind of ended up trapped, but some of them knew and enrolled anyway. For me, the cons would outweigh the pros. I'd think that there is enough variety in the accredited schools that one would be able to find what they want among them, but I guess not.
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quote:The apex of second-semester activities is the spring Bible Conference, which gives students a break from classes and exposes them to the strong Biblical teaching of some of America’s finest Bible teachers, preachers, and evangelists.
posted
A place like that seems to be more of a rich and strict parent's choice than the students'. Ugh.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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mph: one thing the article points out is that the college is intentionally uninformative about the disadvantages of not being accredited. For instance, one of the students (who likes it there) wishes to go to dental school, but is finding that impossible. Another person who graduated with a degree in education is beginning to have regrets after discovering no public school will take her as a teacher.
And of course, merely that something is voluntary does not make it good, even for those people choosing it, or that no regulation should be able to stand in its way. However, for the most part the existence of this place seems acceptable, if detestable. It might be violating some advertising laws, though, especially if recruiters are told to say (as one student reports being told) that Harvard and similar aren't accredited.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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For that matter, can leave at any time only applies to the place as a whole. If you want to leave campus but remain enrolled, that's another question (particularly if you're female). I'm not saying that doesn't mean people are free to go, but its an important distinction.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by enochville: BaoQingTian, hahahahaha lol!
Yeah, you list all the things us LDS return missionaries couldn't do at the time and (except for optical intercourse) we have 'em beat. I guess LDS missionaries are largely self-regulated though.
I didn't even want to go to BYU. I can't imagine going to Pensacola. Someone must have decreased the dosage in my Kool-Aid.
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quote:Although students under 18 can't leave whenever they want.
Good point.
Any of the adult students can leave at any time.
I'm still waiting to hear the "horror stories" about this place.
quote:If you want to leave campus but remain enrolled, that's another question (particularly if you're female).
Of course you cannot break their rules and stay a student. That's a choice each student gets to make on their own, though.
The school sounds like a bad idea, and I would recommend against it, but I'm not going to get too concerned about what school college students decide to go to.
quote:I'm still waiting to hear the "horror stories" about this place.
Well, what I consider horrific is that we have a subculture of people who are willing to voluntarily subject themselves to this sort of treatment. What's most disturbing is not that they want to live according to a "traditional" morality, but that the students abdicate responsibility for living up to their own codes by giving themselves over to PCC's system of rules.
If you want to live chastely, fine. But don't do it by locking yourself in a cage.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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There was a place like this not far from where I went to high school. One of my coworkers at Burger King attended, and was strictly forbidden to touch men for any reason; if you tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, she'd literally recoil and usually burst into tears.
She was eventually expelled for listening to the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack album while on the quad, since it wasn't on the school's list of approved music. That she was wearing headphones at the time was no protection, since monitors are authorized to cut in and demand to listen to whatever it is you're playing (and obviously chose to exercise that right in her case.)
Shortly after being expelled, she slept with her cousin, got pregnant, and moved to Kentucky.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Just today I was researching clients. One of our old prospects was a "Bible" college. I won't mention names. I knew it wasn't going to be a good prospect when the front page of thier web-site showed the 2006 Graduating class--one picture of each--all 8 of them, except for the two blanks who didn't have any pictures.
I enjoyed reading their policies and admissions guidelines. While the accepted people of any race, ethnicity, or gender, they were a bit vague on accepting people of all faiths. One paragraph talked about thier wonderful interfaith policies, saying anyone willing to follow thier moral guidelines could attend, no matter what religion they were. Three paragraphs later it said to get admitted you needed a letter from your minister. So I guess its any religion--that has a Christian Minister.
They also were very tolerant to people from out of the country, as long as they had mastered the English language.
Of course, despite the fact that strict chastity, if not virginity was expected of all students, no homosexuals would be allowed.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I can't get the artical but here is what I found on Wikipedia.
quote: A main factor contributing to PCC's lack of accreditation is its non-compliance with Section 3.7 of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools' accreditation policies, which deals with faculty competence.
quote:The college has four levels of punishment; students can be socialed, campused, shadowed, or expelled. Students who have been socialed are not permitted to speak or interact with members of the opposite sex for two weeks. Campused students are not permitted to leave the campus grounds or speak with any other student being disciplined for two weeks. Individuals who are shadowed are assigned to a floor leader (a fellow student who is paid by PCC to enforce campus discipline) and must attend that person's classes, sleep in their room, and cannot speak with anyone else for the duration. The final form of punishment is expulsion from the college.
quote: Regulations govern all aspects of student life, including clothing, hairstyles, dorm room cleanliness, types of outside employment, borrowing, magazines, and music (only classical and traditional Christian music are permitted). It is currently being petitioned for the genre of country music to be allowed at the college, on the account "Southern" and "Christian" feel. In the past, PCC has only permitted students to listen to classical music or limited, traditional Christian music. Mixed-gender interaction has the strictest rules. Stairwells and elevators are segregated by gender, members of the opposite sex are not permitted to touch in any way (even shaking hands is against the rules), mixed-gender meetings (even off-campus) are forbidden unless a PCC chaperon is present, and staring into the eyes of a member of the opposite sex, called "eye kissing", "optical intercourse", or "making eye babies", is discouraged by the administration.
quote:In a practice often referred to as "blacklisting," students who have quit the college or been expelled are often told they cannot return to the campus for various reasons. If seen on campus, security escorts them off college property. The security office keeps pictures and information on all banned from the campus. Alumni who criticize the college are removed from the college mailing list and are put on the blacklist. In March 2006, the college banned several alumni from returning to campus because they criticized the college on the popular website myspace.com. Students are eligible for expulsion if their Myspace profiles contain material the college considers inappropriate, such as unapproved music or pictures. College staff members surf the Myspace and Student Voice websites to see what current and former students are saying about the college.
posted
Here's another thing I found really disturbing:
quote: For playing the video game [Halo 2], [Timothy] Dow was campused. Later, in the cafeteria, he ran into a friend who had just been expelled. Mr. Dow had been told not to talk to his friend, who had previously been campused. But he figured it would be OK now that his friend was leaving. "I gave him a hug and said, 'See you later, man,'" he says.
Someone witnessed the exchange and turned Mr. Dow in. Students routinely turn each other in for violating rules and are rewarded by the administration for doing so. According to several former students, those who report classmates are more likely to become floor leaders.
Mr. Dow was called to the office of the dean of men, where, he says, he waited for about four hours. Then he was expelled.
A student being expelled for saying goodbye to a friend (without even breaking any of the school's male-female conduct codes) is pretty messed up.
I tried to find a no-subscription-necessary link for the article, but failed. I suppose posting the whole article wouldn't be allowed?
Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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What bothers me the most is not the moral code - which the school as a private institution has the right to set up and enforce, but the serious lack of academic excellence.
That said, I do think the moral code is a little much. I must be headed to the seventh layer of hell according to these people because I not only listen the the Phantom of the Opera, but I routinely use the same elevators as men and .... prepare yourself... played Halo I AND II! Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I'm more interested in the twistedness of rewarding spying and turning each other in for small rule breaking. If thats really the culture there, it seems the only lesson is to not trust anyone.
It must be a lonely place to live.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote:Well, what I consider horrific is that we have a subculture of people who are willing to voluntarily subject themselves to this sort of treatment.
Meh. I did pretty much the same thing for two years. It wasn't a horror.
quote:I'm more interested in the twistedness of rewarding spying and turning each other in for small rule breaking.
This I'll agree is an ugly, ugly thing.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:I routinely use the same elevators as men and .... prepare yourself... played Halo I AND II!
The big difference is that you haven't promised that you wouldn't. If this college is like most other colleges with codes of conduct like this, then all the students have already agreed to follow the rules.
While I there may not be anything wrong with playing Halo, there is something wrong with saying you won't and then doing it anyway.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote: Entering entryway of opposite sex on campus or allowing the same
This quote from Liberty's website tells me something: Around midnight, I start misinterpreting things really badly.
2. As I recall from the time I've spent on college campuses, the elevators were a hot spot for sexual intercourse (no joke; after the first two unwanted eyefuls, I started taking the stairs).
3. Bob Jones University keeps sending me letters. I have four now. And very very nice ones. Offering me scholarships sans application for said scholarships, practically. I framed them and put them on my wall. I figure they're a nice covnersation piece, 'cause I'm probably as close to a demon as they've ever seen on Bob Jones campus (gay, UU, and pretty liberal--they'll love me).
All right, who wants to have my eye babies?
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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There's also mention in the article that many of the rules, including some that can result in the more severe punishments, are not formal. That is, they're not part of what the students agreed to.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Oral Roberts University sent me a similar offer. I laughed for pretty much the same reason. I doubt they would have appreciated having a Mormon at their school any more than I would have appreciated being there.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Frankly, while I don't agree with the ultra-conservative view, I also don't think that it should be demonized either. Students who choose to attend colleges like Pensacola and Bob Jones know exactly what type of life they are selecting for themselves (regardless of what the article may say) (edit: at least in terms of lifestyle, accreditation (sp?) may be another question). I can't see the whole article and I'm not going to pay for it just to read the one article but frankly, what I don't understand is not why an ultra-conservative person would choose to go to an ultra-conservative school, but more why they would choose to attend said school and then complain about the rules that they don't like. I've heard MANY Bob Jones students complain about their school rules. If you don't agree with them don't go to that school, it's that simple. There are plenty of other good colleges and universities out there.
I did go to a school that required students to report rule breaking. Actually, I went to a school that required me to tell the rule-breaker, "You have 24 hours to turn yourself in to the Civitas Council/Honor Board," and then to notify the head of said board that I had done so. If I didn't, then I COULD be turned in for tolerance of another student's behavior. That said, I never gave anyone 24 hours and I was never turned in for tolerance.
The rule was annoying but it had it's usefulness. I could leave my purse in the lobby of any building and walk away for 10 or 15 minutes and know that it would be exactly as I left it when I got back. Incidents of cheating were much lower than at other schools and many professors at the school have said that if they ever choose to leave, they wouldn't want to teach at a college that didn't have an honor code that was enforced by all the students. Most of our exams were unproctored unless there was lab work involved, I could schedule my exams to take place during certain slots during exam weeks and I could take the exam in any room in the building where it was handed out.
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quote:what I don't understand is not why an ultra-conservative person would choose to go to an ultra-conservative school, but more why they would choose to attend said school and then complain about the rules that they don't like. I've heard MANY Bob Jones students complain about their school rules. If you don't agree with them don't go to that school, it's that simple.
You don't think some of these students might be under pressure from their parents to attend these colleges, and not want to go themselves?
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Perhaps, but the reality is, they can still choose not to go. Now, for high school programs, that's another story, but ultimately, no matter what pressure (social, familial, monetary etc.) choice of a college or university is up to the student not the parent when it comes right down to it. And yes I do realize that the above pressure can be enormous and difficult to deal with.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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The new dorms at URI have elevators, and they had to quickly install security cameras to try to deter the, uh, meetings that happened in them Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Is the point that some students can't be trusted to behave in ways that are not destructive to themselves or others so rules are needed?
Are the rules there to make the learning environment safe for everyone? One wonders what the incidence of rape is on this campus compared to others of similar size.
Are the rules derived from religious motivations (Scripture, tradition, other sources?)
Are the rules part of the education? Maybe it's something that the school actually prides itself on and promotes?
This kind of place doesn't sound like something I'd want, but I can certainly see where there are people who might decide for themselves that it's a great fit, or whose parents decide that their son or daughter will be better off there, for a variety of reasons.
Sure, this place isn't for everyone, but neither are the US military academies, or places where there are mandatory community service requirements for graduation, or places where the sports program controls the academic life of the school.
Maybe this school hasn't even sought accreditation. They might view their mission complately differently.
Of course, some students will find they wasted their money (or their parents money) in going there when they can't get a job or pursue a career readily in their desired field.
But I daresay there's enough of THAT going on in mainstream academia that we probably ought to just let it pass.
And Belle, I'll be a couple of levels below you. Send cookies!
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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I had a friend who briefly dated a girl who was attending this school at the time. I remember being horrified of all the rules then and I still don't get it now. The only way they could go on dates was for her mother to go by the school and sign her out. How are you ever supposed to find a spouse? Do your parents arrange it.
If you believe in certain lifestyle then you should practice it, but is it really your belief if someone else is enforcing it for you? I thought college was a time for young adults to start making their own decisions.
This same friend went to a small Christian high school that has some similar rules, although not as strict. In his class of 30 they had three girls get pregnant. That was the same number we had in my class of 300 (well that I knew about). No matter how hard you try to stop it from happening, if people want to do something they will find a way to do it. Let’s not teach them how to think or live just give them rules and blindly assume they will follow them.
Posts: 555 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Isn't this a right of association issue? If adults want to get together and make up rules for themselves, then they can do that.
For example, if a student goes to VMI, they can't get married while an undergrad and can't have a car until their senior year. Forget about dating a fellow student. I wouldn't want to do it, but I know people who go and they love it. Since there is a variety of people out there, I think it's nice that not everyone is expected to fit into the same kind of school.
I still haven't heard any horror stories. I think the rules are way over the top and I'd slit my wrists before I attended there, but that's why I didn't attend a school like that. If students choose to attend there and agree to the rules, then the school has the right to enforce them.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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Ignorance and sex are a dangerous mix, that's for sure.
I think the important thing is that the individual person should be the one deciding if a place like this is a good fit or not.
I suppose if a kid was sent there against his/her will, it'd be pretty easy to leave though. A little ocular baby making and you're on the next bus home.
Strange kind of prison where the punishment for disobeying the rules is freedom.
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