In the same way you can discover something important about a university by how it names its department teaching about Christianity (e.g., Religion, Theology, Bible, Christian Studies), you can learn something about a university by how it labels the moral ideals it sets forth for students. You can also ascertain a great deal about them by the language and reasoning they use to justify how they think students should behave. This post will analyze the options that 532 different Christian universities employ.
What Do You Call It?
If you look at the options by which institutions name the document containing the moral guidelines for students, you find that they divide into five approaches.
The Basic Conduct Code approach (n=287) settles for calling student expectations the same thing that secular universities call it: a Code of Student Conduct, Code of Behavior, Expectations, Guidelines, Policies, Rules, or Standards. Often, much of what is listed in the code is justified simply by appealing to the law (more on that later).
The Southern Approach (n=43) appeals to honor, so it is not surprising that 32 of the 43 institutions using this approach are below the Mason-Dixon line. These codes appeal not to external laws but to some sense of personal honor that supposedly already is internalized and will lead one to personal consistency in the name of keeping one’s honor. One typical example is: “As a member of the [name of institution] College community, I will uphold the values that ground our institution, and I will not lie, cheat, or steal.” As is the case with this example, in most of these codes, there is no appeal to God.
Since we know college students tend to be most influenced by their peers and other social groups, it is not surprising that two dozen Christian institutions simply take what we call the Community Approach (n=24). This approach takes two forms. The first form simply involves an appeal to one’s identity as a member of that particular community. Since you are a [fill in the new identity], good [fill in the identity] do the following. For instance, one Catholic institution provides “The 12 Virtues of a Good Lasallian.” Others appeal to “The Redhawk Commitment” or “The Cardinal Pledge.” A few Protestant institutions appeal to “The Scot’s Key,” the “Gustie Guide,” the “Newberrian Creed,” and the “Wesleyan Creed.” This approach involves a functional appeal to a small identity or role to justify adherence to particular moral virtues, principles or rules.
The second type of community approach merely appeals to a general notion of a good community. Institutions may call their standards their “Philosophy of Community,” “Commitment to University Community,” “Community Living Values,” “Community Lifestyle Commitment,” or “A Vision for Our Common Life.” In both forms, one finds no clear moral basis or foundation for the moral substance required to help the community beyond the community itself.
There is one small group that simply takes a Political Language approach (n=9). Using the same language of “rights and responsibilities” used by many political entities and state universities, they mention how students have rights and responsibilities. The code then functions as a social contract. There are rights the university must protect and then responsibilities the student must fulfill (see here for example).
Finally, there are those institutions that turn to a biblical word. They talk about participating in a Community Covenant (n=42). Now, this covenant is different than many biblical covenants in that it is not initiated by God, and disobeying it does not result in death. Instead, it is more akin to our understanding of Christian marriage as a covenant between the bride, groom, church community, and God. All except three of the institutions that use this language are CCCU, IACU, or low-church Protestant.
One of the clear strengths of this approach is that it brings God into the community’s moral motivations and ideals, and not simply one’s political obligations, honor, or community (which can be found at any secular university). The second obvious strength of this approach is that these institutions are much more likely to supply a positive moral vision of what individual and communal human flourishing looks like. Often, these covenants focus less on what I call “fall control” (thou shalt not) and more on virtues necessary to image God or imitate Christ (love, patience, forgiveness, humility, etc.). They give students a positive, biblically-based moral vision for which to strive instead of a set of laws or rules that prove tempting to break.
One important question is whether such a God-oriented covenant can be effective in a Christian higher education that admits non-Christians. Although twenty-five of the forty-two institutions with a community covenant admit only Christians, seventeen institutions with more open admissions policies still uphold a community covenant. I would need to do further research about the challenges they may face in that situation, but I think it is instructive that this approach is being taken in more pluralistic settings.
If a university wants students to think about God and the image bearer of God they want to become, the last approach is the most promising one, although it could be combined with one of the other approaches. For example, one university noted,
The Honor Code is a covenant that students make with one another, with the school, and with God. It is a sacred pledge to hold each other accountable to become a people whom God has transformed to take the transforming word to the world. “Before our Lord Jesus Christ, I, as a student of [institution here], pledge to honor God, my fellow students, and my school, with my mind, body and soul by reflecting Christlikeness in academics and my relationships, committing to the values of integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. The [university] student body wants to develop a Christ-honoring reputation that will be widely recognizable and joyfully accepted by current students and alumni alike as a referendum on their character.
Now, that’s a positive vision for students.
The Moral Reasoning Supplied to Students
A group of us also recently published a study of the moral reasoning in these student conduct codes. In our study, we found appeals to eight different types of moral reasoning. Most forms of moral reasoning were completely secular and simply relied on legal authority, university authority, citizenship, education, morality, and safety as the bases for various policies. For example, 45% of admonitions against drinking or drugs were usually justified by simple appeals to legal authority without offering any theological framing (e.g., “The legal drinking age in Michigan is 21; College policy regarding alcohol is based on Michigan Law”). This simple appeal to legal authority is the dominant trend found among all universities.1
Moral codes without legal justification, such as prohibitions of adult pornography (found at only 262 institutions), usually simply made raw appeals to university authority (e.g., “Lewd, indecent, or obscene behavior, language, music, or dress will not be tolerated. This includes but is not limited to the possession or display of pornographic and/or sexually suggestive material, and derogatory racial/ethnic material in any form on university-owned or leased premises, or personal property.”). Only 19% used Christian reasoning that appealed to theological or biblical concepts.
One would hope that Christian institutions would try to be a little more counter-cultural and educational. The only subject where Christian reasoning was used even 40% of the time was when the code referred to dress—found at only 45% of institutions (e.g.,” Appearance, as with all areas of life, is guided by biblical principles. It is expected that students will make wise decisions regarding their dress and overall appearance. At all times, students should be dressed modestly in a way that glorifies God rather than brings attention to self. God has created people in his image; therefore, students should glorify God with their whole being, including physically through their dress.”).
Overall, we found that most Christian student conduct codes “demonstrate a lack of attention to moral development by failing to include moral, educational, citizen-oriented, or Christian forms of moral reasoning for most issues studied. Educational leaders at these institutions are not communicating the Christian reasoning that undergirds their policies. Consequently, the codes offer little cohesive insight into what purposes leaders think their conduct codes serve.”
Now, we do not think the answer is simply to provide proof texts throughout one’s student code of conduct. Instead, we think it might be a helpful exercise for Christian administrators to justify their policy using Christian biblical and theological reasoning. That is what exemplary programs do, and I would argue that this is one reason that Christian universities exist to teach students the various ways to think, love, and act Christianly in their moral lives.
I appreciate your research so much, and recently made a similar appeal at my institution as an AI Policy for students was being developed. The supposed final draft was shared, and my observation was that it could come from any secular institution. A university whose mission is to educate from a Biblical worldview, surely, should base its AI Policy on a Biblical worldview AND make that apparent to students. I’m sure I wasn’t the only faculty member to express my concern, and I’m pleased to say that the next iteration (still under revision) included reasoning for several sections of the policy that included reference to Biblical principles that would inform how we engage with AI.
Thanks Perry! Your post is quite interesting to me. In a sociology of religion course I teach we look at how secularization in Christian institutions is sometimes simply chalked up to the waning of belief. That may be true, but as institutions like Christian colleges lower their filters, they begin to grant outside secular organizations a measure of authority, which leads to adopting new standards for various things. The presence of extra-institutional groups, revolutionizes the thinking of those in the Christian organization as they work to balance their mission with submission/compliance to them. For example, accreditation bodies, regulatory organizations in sport such as the NCAA, etc. Adoption of secular standards of fairness, human worth, and so on, can have a profound effect on the Christian organization over time, and this is reflected in language. Your post piques my interest in looking back through my institution’s student handbook to see how the language has changed over time.
I think that would be a fascinating historical study! I will also add that my own study would be consistent with your core observation. Secularization usually simply involves granting authority to extra-institutional groups such as professional societies and other regulatory organizations.
Re: “Christian universities exist to teach students the various ways to think, love, and act Christianly in their moral lives.”
For those students who are truly born again, I hope that is not necessary. But certainly to challenge Christians to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” in all aspects of their university lives is vital, and to make clear to others who choose to attend a Christian university or college that there is only one set of standards, applicable to all members of the community, is critical. Perhaps a soundly Biblical course in Christian ethics ought to be required of all students, as well as other members of the community, or an annual spiritual orientation to kick off the academic year.
As an afterthought, I wonder if Christian educational institutions should steer clear of the term “moral” when it comes to drafting a set of standards for members of their communities. It has strong secular undertones; a secular person could live a “good” moral life with respect to their marriage and their work ethic, for example. But Christians are called to live for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:15) and, to that end, to “do all for the glory of God”. That is clearly a different standard from what a secular society would consider a morally good life.