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I recently recieved and e-mail from Dr. Jerry Falwell about Wheaton College.  The title of it was "Wheaton: Another School Goes Down."  He was commenting on the Chicago Sun-Times article that talked about Wheaton's recent position change on faculty drinking and student dancing.  I will quote the entire e-mail and then comment.

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MEMORANDUM: TO: LU FACULTY, STAFF AND STUDENTS FROM: LU CHANCELLOR JERRY FALWELL DATE:  FEBRUARY 20, 2003

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My heart was deeply grieved when I read this attached article in the Chicago Sun-Times today.  Wheaton College has been a great evangelical institution for many years.  I am asking that our students, faculty, staff and and administration pray that the Holy Spirit will convict the Wheaton Board of Trustees and officals to take the courageous stand necessary to reverse this ruling immediately.

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Further, I ask the entire Liberty family pray that our own leaders in this and the next generation take all the necessary steps to prevent such a terrible indictment being laid at Liberty's doorstep within my lifetime or even 50 years down the road.  This is a heartbreaking matter.  II Chronicles 7:14

WHEATON STUDENTS CAN DANCE; STAFF MAY DRINK February 20, 2003 Chicago Sun Times

A culture revolution is under way in the far west suburbs: Wheaton College students, long banned by a strict code of conduct from smoking, drinking, or having sex, and a won a long-sought privilege this week.

They can dance.

Faculty members and graduate students, bound by a similary code of conduct, have been granted some added privileges, too.  For what's believed to be the first time in the 143-year history of the evangelical Christian school, perhaps best known for the beig the alma mater fo the Rev. Billy Graham, they are now allowed to drink alcohal and smoke. That is, as long as they do those things off-campus and, in the case of drinking, only outside the presence of undergrads.

The changes were annouced Wednesday during a chapel service.

They came after the college's board of trustees might be violating a 1991Illinois law that sets limits on how much employers can regulate the private lives of their workers.  The trustees decided that adult faculty members should have the freedom to choose whether they want to smoke or drink alcohol, at least while off-campus.

"Drinking and tobacco use are none of the college's business," spokeswoman Pat Swindle said the trustees decided, when it comes to what the faculty and staff do on their own time.

That was the start.  Soon, trustees decided that, even though the law wouldn't apply to their students, a little dancing probably wouldn't hurt.

Besides, the school's 2,400 students already were allowed to square-dance under the school's "Statement of Responsiblities," a comprehensive code of conduct known on campus as "the pledge," which all students and faculty members are required to sign each year.

The pledge hadn't changed in 30 years.  Prehaps the biggest change in recent years came in 1987.  The pledge was modified to apply only to the school year, and not to behavior during summer and Christmas vacations.

But times change, the trustees decided, and the pledge needed to change as well.

"We quickly foudn that, when you begin to tweak a 30 year-old policy, you quickly run into huge changes in culture and attitudes...as well as vastly different student attitutdes, needs and pressures," said Bud Knoedler, a member of the board of trustees who chaired the committee that recommended the changes.

And its not as if the college has done away with all of its rules, said Swindle, noting, "If you decide to join the Wheaton College community of students, you'll have to go along with the community." Drinking, smoking, sex and pornography, for instance, are still taboo for Wheaton undergraduates, Swindle said, describing the rules as a "pretty good guide to living."

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