I had an interesting experience Sunday when one of the young men in my ward informed me he wanted to go to Yale. I recoiled in horror. And I am not a Harvard or Princeton grad, so this has nothing to do with Ivy League prejudices.
Now, this was not a prepared reaction. Just a few years ago, I would have probably patted him on the back and given him tips on how to improve his SAT scores. But for some reason, my first, unrehearsed and unprepared reaction was complete terror. Why?
The first reason is of course that I am the old fuddy-duddy on this board, 41 years old in chronology but older than Methuselah in attitudes. I don’t even let my kids watch TV, for heaven’s sake. But as my eldest daughter (9) begins to talk a bit about where she would like to go to college, I have been thinking a bit about what it was like to be a young man in California in the late-1970s and early 1980s, when I was in high school and college, and I’m scared to death about the whole college experience thing.
Stanford University in the early 1980s was a place for exploration of every kind — sexual, alcoholic and drugs. We had just gone through the revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Kids were released from high school into a bacchanalia of experimentation. We had coed dorms where “hooking up” took place constantly. We had dorm-sponsored parties with “a different drink in every room” where Resident Advisers would buy kegs of beer and 10 types of alcohol and encourage all of the freshmen (especially the freshmen girls) to get wasted. Marijuana and cocaine were everywhere. Date rape happened all the time, although it often didn’t get reported. Abortion was relatively common.
There was no consciousness at all of the environment the university had created, no sense that it was, by turning a blind eye to the goings on in freshmen dorms, creating a moral vacuum.
These days, we hear a lot about how sexual activity is even more prevalent than it was 20 years ago. There are some arguments to indicate that the most recent generation is a bit more conservative than mine, and if so, it’s something to celebrate. But we also read in books like “I am Charlotte Simmons” that most modern-day universities are all about sex and alcohol. I have great respect for Tom Wolfe’s ability to catch and detail the undercurrents of social trends (he started by bringing to the attention of middle America the revolutions of the 1960s and continued with 1980s hyper-capitalism in “Bonfire of the Vanities.”) I think Tom Wolfe is onto something here: modern-day universities (at least the non-religious ones) have taken the experimentation of the 1960s and early 1970s and institutionalized it. They have turned into the modern-day brothels.
And this is exactly the argument of Vigen Guroian, who writes the following in Christianity Today:
“Loyola College and a great many other colleges and universities simply do not acknowledge, let alone address, the sexualization of the American college. Rather, they do everything possible to put a smiley face on an unhealthy and morally destructive environment, one that—and this is no small matter—also makes serious academic study next to impossible. Most of the rhetoric one hears incessantly from American colleges about caring for young men and women and respecting their so-called freedom and maturity is disingenuous. Should we really count it to their credit that colleges are spending more and more resources on counseling and therapy when the direct cause of many wounds they seek to heal is the Brave New World that they have engineered, sold as a consumer product, and supervised?
To serve in loco parentis involves caring for the whole student not as an employer or client but as parent. In its statement “Vision and Values: A Guide for the Loyola College Community,” Loyola says it holds to “an ideal of personal wholeness and integration.” The college aims “to honor, care for, and educate the whole person,” enjoining the entire college community “to strive after intellectual, physical, psychological, social, and spiritual health and well-being.” The statement correctly associates these goals of education with the Roman Catholic faith and the liberal-arts tradition. Many other colleges and universities issue similar statements of aim and purpose on both religious and secular grounds. Yet the climate at Loyola College—and many, many others—produces the antithesis of these aims. It fosters not growth into wholeness but the dissolution of personality, not the integration of learning and everyday living but their radical bifurcation. It most certainly does not support the church’s values of marriage and family.
Young men and women are being enticed to think of themselves as two selves, one that is mind and reason in the classroom and another self, active “after hours,” that is all body and passion. They begin to imagine—though few entirely believe it—that they can use (that is, abuse) their bodies as they please for pleasure, and that choosing to do so has nothing to do with their academic studies or future lives. In reality, they are following a formula for self-disintegration and failure.
This is the grisly underbelly of the modern American college; the deep, dark, hidden secret that many parents suspect is there but would rather not face. The long-term damage to our children is difficult to measure. But it is too obvious to deny. I remember once hearing that the British lost the empire when they started sending their children away to boarding schools. I do not know whether anyone has ever seriously proposed that thesis. I am prepared, however, to ask whether America might not be lost because the great middle class was persuaded that they must send their children to college with no questions asked, when in fact this was the near-equivalent of committing their sons and daughters to one of the circles of Dante’s Inferno.”
Unfortunately, I tend to agree with Vigen Guroian, who is a professor of theology at Loyola. And here’s the bottom line for me: my kids will be able to go to college wherever they want, and I will help them financially as much as I am able. But I will strongly encourage them to go to BYU or at least a school in Utah. I am certain that this remark will get a dozen responses saying, “hah, when I went to BYU (or Utah), it was even worse than Stanford, blah, blah, blah.” But the reality is that at least BYU tries to help guide the moral values of its students (I’m not sure about Utah, but I have cousins who go there who say the strong LDS presence moderates the sex-and-drugs atmosphere). Most modern-day universities administrators seem to be nothing more than owners of Las Vegas casinos who watch the depravity going on (depravity they have created) but attribute it to nothing more than “the freedom of choice.”
I tend to agree, which is why I often find it funny when people gripe about BYU and its rules. Yeah they are sometimes unfairly and unequally enforced. Yes sometimes they are a little silly. But I honestly think that the alternative at most colleges is pretty horific. It’s one thing to say people ought to be free to figure things out themselves. However I think people simply don’t realize what goes on in many apartments at college. And, the fact of the matter is, that unless you already have a bunch of friends you can pick as roommates, you’re sort of stuck with things. I’d made that point over at the discussion on the honor code at Dave’s. Having had some “choice” roommates while at BYU I suspect I’m a tad sensitive to that issue.
I should add though, that those who think Provo is somehow this pure Mecca are in for a shock. There is a lot of sex and drugs here. In fact some friends say it is almost worst here in some ways. I had a friend from Atlanta (non-Mormon) come out here. She said that the Park City scene was all about casual sex and lots of drinking/drugs in a fashion she’d never seen before. Even in Provo there was a surprising amount of casual sex and drugs in many complexes I lived in. I think the hot tub at Belmont apartments when I was there had more sex in it than Melrose’s Place. (Not me, of course, but everyone knew what was going on)
So part of it is just the fact that kids when they leave home and rules sometimes go crazy. Further you have a lot of people with problematic backgrounds contibuting. Then you throw in some of the changes in society and what is acceptable and odd things can happen.
Geoff B–
Depends on the kid. A kid wanting immorality will find it at BYU; one wanting the straight (or strait, if you prefer) and narrow will even do fine in Berkeley.
I always associated the phrase, In loco parentis, with the elementary and secondary schools. It seems to me that since most university students are over 18, this doesn’t really apply. Yet, despite no longer needing permission slips, undergraduates are nevertheless infantilized with such things as speech codes and diversity training.
Wait, wait, wait a second. Geoff, I’m starting to see a pattern in your posts and I’m not sure I agree with your reasoning. In the comments of your TV post you used the phrase “to be in the world and not of it” as a defense for your argument. It seems like this post is heading in that same direction. You seem to be saying we should remove ourselves from evil influences because we might be susceptible to them. While this may be true for some kids, I agree with Julie that some (hopefully my own) will take on the challenge and become better for it. I know that growing up around a lot of sin and bad influence (A) actually made me stronger and (B) I was able to be a good influence on those around me (leading directly to a casual aquaintence being baptized). I attribute most of that to my parents and my upbringing (which incidentally included quite a bit of TV) and my testimony. I figure that when Christ said, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” (John 17:15) he’s saying “it’s okay for my Saints to be among the evil, just protect them from being influenced by it” and then parenthetically saying, “…just like me.”
Rusty, if you follow your logic, you ought to send your kids to the top party schools. If sin actually makes you stronger, why don’t you seek it out? Why don’t you hang out in strip clubs or in Las Vegas casinos and try to convert some of those hard-core gamblers? You will note that I will respect my childrens’ free will and support wherever they want to go to school, even if it is the University of Miami, for example, which is a well-known party school. It may be that one of my kids specializes in a field that is very strong at a party school, and he or she goes there and flourishes despite the party atmosphere. My sister, for example, was very interested in nutrition and went to UC Berkeley and avoided the party atmosphere there precisely because it had a great nutrition program.
But life is about choices, and every choice has importance. You don’t take your kids through a high crime area because “crime happens everywhere.” You avoid the high crime areas of town simply because it’s common sense. You look for the best elementary schools and middle schools and high schools for your kids because you want to give them the best chance at getting a good education. And when they get to college, you want them to get a good education, but you also want them to pursue Truth. The most important Truth is the Gospel, and chances are higher they will be exposed to it at BYU or the U than at, say, the University of Miami.
This doesn’t mean that people can’t find the Gospel just about anywhere. The truth is that today they *can* find it at just about any university. But as a parent, one of my jobs is to increase the chance that my kids will be exposed to and accept the restored Gospel.
There are two issues in the post. First is the one everyone has addressed so far– how do kids deal with evil environments on campus.
But I wonder why no one has spoken to the issue that I think is much more interesting– what is the role of the modern university in moderating that environment? How can this be done at a public school, where constitutional principles of establishment and free expression govern?
Sorry for that anonymous comment, everyone– comment #6 was by me!
“Depends on the kid. A kid wanting immorality will find it at BYU; one wanting the straight (or strait, if you prefer) and narrow will even do fine in Berkeley”
Not to be nuanced, but there are also lots of kids who are on the fence or impressionable. The college environment probably only makes a difference on the margins, but I’m inclined to think the margins are pretty wide.
Geoff B, glad to see you let your nine year old be a kid.
Seven Bohanan
I must disagree.
I went to Harvard for all the wrong reasons (my parents were pushing it, it was Ivy, etc.) and realized it was the correct choice for reasons I hadn’t even thought of: there, for the first time in my life, I found a community of Saints who could connect with me because they shared my interests and concerns, while at the same time being shining examples of living the gospel. This was at the same time that, as an angsty adolescent, I was in the throes of quietly rebelling against religious strictures and what I thought of as judgmentalism and parochialism in the Church. (I didn’t go out and sin, but neither was I very good about going to church my freshman year.) It was hard to retain those views when people who were clearly intellectual and mature giants had lots of nonmember friends and were totally openminded (it was this big epiphany for me– don’t laugh, I was a pretty stupid kid– when I realized you could like the Simpsons and still be a good Mormon) and yet took the gospel so seriously… I thank God for the forces that pushed me to Harvard– if I had gone to most other schools for college, including BYU, I would surely not be active today.
Plus which, I made a lot of wonderful friends who shared my standards and who are incredibly interesting people. Yes, if you wanted random sex and wild drinking and drugs I guess you could do that, but most of those I knew (and most weren’t Mormon) were not into that kind of thing.
My perception (after being in several wards of mostly students, including my current ward which has many UCSB students, UCSB being a notorious party school) is that if you have raised your children to be strong in the Church, they will mostly hang out with kids in their ward in college, which will not really expose them to the sorts of things you are worried about. If you have raised them to have high standards, but not necessarily to be really strong Church members (as was the case in my family), they will tend to gravitate to people who share those standards.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that people have different needs. Obviously there are people who ought to go to BYU to bolster their testimonies. But there are also people who shouldn’t (of which I was one), and when choosing a college, one’s individual spiritual needs ought to be taken into consideration.
On the other hand, I suspect it’s still better to go to Harvard than UCSB, party-enviroment-wise 🙂
I should also point out that the Boston area has a very large and vibrant student ward. Yale, last I heard, was much smaller. I would’ve had a hard time there too. I was very against my sister attending Yale for just this reason. But again, it’s what is right for the individual. The number of single members at my grad school was small, smaller than Yale’s I believe, but because I had already gained so much from my college years, that didn’t bother my testimony the way it would have had it been an undergrad experience.
I haven’t read I Am Charlotte Simmons yet — that’s for after graduation, when I have free time again — but I am presently attending a college that’s not BYU or even in Utah, and the horrific picture that you paint is somewhat out of proportion.
It’s true that there’s a lot of pressure to have casual sex and drink a great deal. Can’t deny that. We have what we commonly call a “hook-up” culture, where it’s fine — and culturally encouraged, sometimes — to sleep with someone for a drunken night and then forget about them in the morning. We have a lot of drinking on campus, especially on the weekends. But we have a lot of studying, too.
The administration is aware of it. They don’t just turn a blind eye, saying we all have the freedom to choose: they acknowledge that we have the freedom to choose, and then regulate. On the drinking end, for example, security makes the rounds of all the parties; if a keg isn’t registered, they throw it out; if a party isn’t registered, they shut it down; if they find beer or hard alcohol in any freshman dorm, the frosh is penalized and put on social probation. On the sexual side, while they don’t preach at us, they do spend a lot of time and effort at least making sure that we’re aware of the culture, aware of the choice not to participate in it, and aware of our options regarding birth control, etc. So while not actively promoting a more positive morality, they’re not allowing the school to run completely wild, either.
And it’s not hard to live in such a place without becoming part of that particular side of the culture. The administration provides “chem-free” housing and social situations — that is, no drugs or alcohol allowed. Students do far more in their free time than sleep around and drink: there’s sports, movies, theater and the arts, hanging out with friends and going to the beach, hiking, concerts…really, even in Middle-of-Nowhere Maine, many of us find ways to occupy ourselves without all that.
Furthermore, I don’t see anys sort of real bifurcation going on here. Many of the people I know who party hard on weekends also work hard during the week. They debate intelligently in the classroom. They write intelligently. They don’t see themselves as two people — a weekend person and a weekday person. They see themselves as one whole person — and one who can combine that sort of lifestyle with intellectual pursuit. Most of the people I know, too, are only casual, social drinkers and parties. I don’t know how they’ll fare in the future, but I know many who I’m sure will go far.
My point is that, yes, it can be scary. And everything’s not as peachy and happy and moral as it is at BYU. But it’s not all bad. And Vigen Guroian’s terrifying image is just that — a terrifying image.
I can recommend some California reading, if anyone is interested.
The university I work for is very conscious of the potential problems of drugs and alcohol. Of course they don’t say much about sex, being a state institution. But without the drugs and alcohol I think the sex problems would be decreased.
Of course, we don’t have students yet. But we’re trying to tackle the issues from the ground up. We hope to avoid the mess going on at a sister campus – a parent withdrew his daughter because of party-atmosphere problems (not to minimize the seriousness of those problems, but to students, that’s what they are) and then started a Web site denouncing the administration for its failure to take action. The university has since tried – and failed – to get him to stop using the “UCSB” acronym as part of his URL. He continues to take them to task. Messy, messy – from a university communications point of view.
Beyond that, I tend to agree with Julie. Students will find whatever they are looking for, wherever they go. Whether I strongly encourage BYU to the exclusion of other institutions for my kids will depend a lot on how strong I perceive them to be when it’s time to go. (It will also depend on what kind of family tuition benefit exists wherever my husband gets a professor job. I sure hope he has a professor job by that time!)
Geoff,
If I follow your logic of following my logic, you shouldn’t send you kids to any school other than BYU. I’m not suggesting seeking out sin. I’m suggesting seeking out truth, follow your dreams, find your desired career, and if that happens to be among sin, grow from it. But you just might miss out on “truth, dreams, career” because you were trying to avoid the sin that mingles with those things. Lost opportunity to excel and be a good example just so that you won’t be offered a beer. Again, Christ mingled with the sinners.
Also, you can’t use the example of the “taking my kids through a high crime area…” because the undesirable outcome you insinuate (being mugged) isn’t about a choice you made, but a choice the mugger makes. Besides, this line of reasoning would suggest nobody should be a social worker…
Geoff, your last line puzzles me. Isn’t it YOUR job to expose your kids to the restored gospel, not the world’s? We’re talking about a secular education. Why is it the role of the university to provide a spiritual education as well? It seems you’re taking the stance that if it’s not a gospel school, it’s a party school. I don’t buy it.
Ryan,
You’re probably right, the more interesting question might be what the role of the university is in moderating the campus environment. However, I think other people here have better things to say about it than I. I also am under the impression that you’re reading a book on that very topic so I’d imagine you have something interesting to say about it 🙂
Ana, having grown up in California, I’m familiar with UC Merced. Seems like you have a great job. In fairness, I think there is a much greater awareness of the problems associated with permitting a sex-and-drugs atmosphere now than there was in the early 1980s. We were still in a post-70s haze then, and nobody worried about, for example, the liability risk of RAs buying kegs and then encouraging 18-year-old girls to chug beer until they passed out. Imagine, if you will, the hot shot lawyer whose daughters attends school and is then suffers brain damage from chugging beer bought by an RA. Yeah, that could be a multi-million dollar problem. So, I think some universities have caught on to this and are trying to control it. I would argue that there is much, much more that should be done. Universities should take an active role in improving the moral environment of their students because that is part of their charter, in my opinion.
Rusty,
It seems you’re taking the stance that if it’s not a party school, it’s not the gospel’s school (I’m exaggerating only slightly).
I can’t square your stance with the scriptures. The ‘lead us not into temptation’ principle suggest to me that trying to avoid temptation is one of the factors one ought to take into account in one’s decision making. Further, I don’t see how, if I accepted your allegiance to hyper-agency, I could explain the existence of BYU as a benefit to students at all.
It seems you’re taking the stance that if it’s not a party school, it’s not the gospel’s school (I’m exaggerating only slightly).
Adam, this makes no sense to me.
However, I fully agree with your statement that “trying to avoid temptation is one of the factors one ought to take into account in one’s decision making” I just don’t think it’s the MOST important decision (and I’m not saying Geoff is saying that either). When someone makes the (often) life-directing decision of where to go to school multitudes of factors come into play, peer influence being one of them. However, I’m constantly inspired in what I do by those same people who go out and party and have lots of sex. Like others here have said, they are often hard-working, normal people who can be very beneficial to my education (not always detrimental).
That being said, I’m not denying the good influences one can have at a school like BYU, I find the over-generalizing portrayal of these other universities as evil a bit silly and innacurate.
My, this sounds like a familiar topic! The whole college question stirs up a lot of emotion, both for graduates looking back on their own experience and for parents thinking about where to direct their kids. I didn’t realize how much emotion is wrapped up in this issue until my recent throwaway post at DMI on the BYU election and an associated honor code incident went platinum (for me, 50+ comments), then went into meltdown. I get the impression some people take college more seriously than religion. And I’m not talking about college football or basketball, I mean just plain old college!
I can’t imagine anything sadder for a parent than to send their bright, happy kid off to college and have them drink, party, or video game themselves into academic failure their first year at school, which seems to happen way too often. Or worse, have a student become the victim of a sexual assault or a violent crime, which can likewise mess up their college success (and their life) for years. While BYU isn’t the only solution to that problem, I certainly endorse the idea that parents take security and campus culture into account when visiting prospective campuses and checking out potential housing arrangements with their college-bound student.
Geoff,
I attended Arizona State University for three years, graduating in 1998. While I was there, the school was generally acknowledged to be one of the top party schools in the nation — it received numerous awards as a party school. One of the years that I was there was a year that Playboy magazine ran a special pictorial dedicated to “Women of ASU.”
I went to classes, I went to institute, I went to work. I married my wife. I have to say that I did just fine.
Though perhaps I should be disappointed. No one so much as offered me a single glass of alcohol or marijuana cigarette. Maybe I need a tuition refund.
And for that matter, I was single for at least part of the time I was there — and I didn’t once get laid. Alas, I never even got any of the legendary ASU wild women to so much as give me a kiss. I was told, again and again, “there are all sorts of wild parties and wild people at ASU.” Well, there was absolutely no partying on my watch.
I don’t know if I ever saw the legendary wild women — most of the girls in my classes seemed pretty normal. I got to be good friends with a female classmate (a non-member, even!). We studied together regularly. And she never once offered sex. Looking back, I’m shocked at her non-party behavior. Where did she think she was? BYU? I’m still wondering why she never offered to have “naked study sessions.”
So, anyway. The point, as far as I can tell, is that the vast majority of the population are normal kids there to get an education, even at the “party schools.” And at a place like Harvard, the nerd-to-partier ratio is probably even more favorable. Yes, there are bad eggs at every school. But the perception that everyone at school is drinking and sleeping around just doesn’t match my observation — and I do speak as one who attended the nation’s biggest party school.
I think this discussion could have ended with Julie in Austin’s comment, though as it’s continued on, I tend to agree with Rusty on this one. Like Kaimi got not action at the partiest party school, I, like Clark, can give you plenty of examples of BYU students who’ve lost their virginity outside of marriage while attending. So that doesn’t necessarily help us out. The point is, when determining what school to go to, this seems like it would be WAY down the list (but still on it). How ’bout focusing on what the kid wants to do for a living, for heaven sake, before recommending BYU as the solution. I’d hate to change my child’s dreams in order to assure he/she meets the criteria of my preconceived ideas of what constitutes a good school (this is just a hypothetical of what could happen if party school vs. non-party school was the “most” important in my mind). I think I’d be the one in need of change (and for the record, I have attended both BYU and another school).
Bob,
Exactly. Thanks for explaining my point much clearer than I did.
A sincere question for Geoff:
I’m trying to understand exactly where you’re coming from here. What specific sorts of things do you think are lacking at the universities you mention? What would you have them do differently? What would it take in the nine-years left before your daughter leaves the nest to keep you from “recoiling in horror” should she qualify for and choose Yale University?
I really am seeking to understand here.
I hate to do this, but I’m inclined to agree with Kaimi on this one. My son went to ASU for one year, worked moderately hard, hustled to earn a buck here and there–working security at Sun Devil Stadium, etc.–and came home ready to serve a mission. I don’t know (didn’t ask) whether all the party animals made life difficult for him, but I know he enjoyed life more when he got rid of his first airhead roommate and got a new guy–African American, son of a drill sergeant, who had picked up some discipline from his father.
And now I have a daughter at Bryn Mawr–oh, oh, a women’s college: Look out for the lesbians. Well, she seems to be much the same young lady she was when she arrived there, but has been challenged (and nurtured) by the environment. She was challenged by the environment at BYU too, but she ultimately couldn’t stand it and left.
And, another daughter is at McGill University. She’s got a great bunch of roommates–none of them is LDS–but they’re good, decent, hard-working young women. And every one of them knows a whole lot more at the Church then she likely ever would have had R gone to BYU.
Does McGill actively “parent” its students? I haven’t noticed. (The football team plays at Molson Stadium, after all.) And maybe it’s too blasted cold in Montreal to party in the winter, anyway. Or maybe Steve Evans and all the crazy canucks have moved down here where it’s warmer.
I don’t know who Vigen Guorian is, and I don’t know which Loyola University he’s talking about (can’t those *(&*% Jesuits get it right anymore?), but I think that he’s giving the students there way too little credit. And I fear that accepting his conclusions uncritically will lead us to that unfortunate insular position that Pres. Hinckley has urged us to get out of–that we’re good and they’re bad and we can’t have anything to do with them.
“She was challenged by the environment at BYU too, but she ultimately couldn’t stand it and left.”
I just have to say that all you need to do is replace the pronoun “she” with “he”, and you’d sum up my experiences there as well.
Geoff says: “Universities should take an active role in improving the moral environment of their students because that is part of their charter, in my opinion.”
How do you propose that universities do that, Geoff? The kids at BYU mostly have a moral background to draw on: the university merely enforces the basic morality of the Mormon religion in a university setting.
But what about colleges and universities that draw kids from all sorts of moral backgrounds? Are they, then, supposed to impose a certain morality (or a Mormon morality) on these kids by policing the dorms and telling them they can’t drink or sleep together at all?
Or should it be more of an encouraging thing, where they merely say, “This is how it should be, and maybe y’all ought to behave this way”?
Or is it enough to teach Aristotle’s Ethics and the Bible in the classroom and hope that through absorbing that intellectually the kids will develop morals that the university can then enforce?
When the kids don’t come to a school with a common moral base, what’s the line? Who decides what the morals should be? And could it be that universities already think they’re doing this by saying that freedom of choice among adults (because, really, us college kids aren’t kids anymore) is more important?
Perhaps I can step in once again and offer the following wisdom:
You’re all missing the point!
Thanks, I’ll catch you all tomorrow.
No, what I mean to say is that we can all argue forever, and with some predictability as to who will argue which side (anyone surprised to see Bob and Adam on opposite sides of the argument?) on the ideal level of atmospheric temptation for an individual to be exposed to. But isn’t that really missing the issue of whether a school should exercise its influence to set that amount? If there is some ideal level of evil (which we probably could never agree on) why aren’t we pressuring the universities to push toward that level?
Regardless of what you think you’d want your own kid exposed to, will anyone here argue that the existence of schools full of sex and drugs is a good thing? If not, doesn’t that suggest that universities ought to at least take a step toward managing the campus atmosphere? If you don’t agree with that, why? Is student experimentation or freedom more important than maintaining moral standards in such important, influential, belweather communities?
Ryan,
If responding to a question you had as a commenter (which was a good question) constitutes missing the point of this thread, then many of us did miss the point. But if responding to the original material in Geoff’s post, which included plenty of indirect accusations as to the lack of quality and wholesomeness of schools outside of Utah (i.e. “But I will strongly encourage them to go to BYU or at least a school in Utah…at least BYU tries to help guide the moral values of its students.”), then many of us are right on target.
Wow, so we’ve learned that an education in Utah is an automatic guarantee of moral values and that other schools outside of BYU do not “help guide the moral values…”. This is the point we did not miss as it was at the end of the original post. And this, coincidently, is the point many of us have HUGE issues with.
Now, your questions, as interesting as they are, are an entirely different subject. But I’ll admit to having missed the point of all of them if you’ll admit to unsuccessful attempted threadjacking. 😉
But when you say, “…that universities ought to at least take a step toward managing the campus atmosphere?” Are you inferring that most universities DO NOT? I have a feeling most universities DO, just not to the degree that Ryan or Geoff were hoping for. I’d be interested in what kind of restructuring you are in favor of. You’ve already stated that we could probably never agree on some ideal level of tolerable evil, but even if we use the least common denominator and find that adjustments still need to be made… As Arwyn already asked, how would we do that?
I’d encourage neither a major party school nor BYU. They’re both too big. Small liberal arts colleges where everybody knows everybody else and the students get lots of interaction with the profs — that’s the way to go.
My small liberal arts college was probably one of the safer places on the planet. And I, too, was never offered any illegal drugs. There was alcohol at most parties, but I didn’t have to drink it.
I’ll just say that while at BYU I spent my summers at Los Alamos. The times I lived in the dorms there, the fact was that most of my roommates (assigned at random) didn’t share my values. The one exception was an orthodox Jew who obviously did. Some of the roommate were really good and respectful. They’d have their sex elsewhere. Others, not so much. I recall one with a large playboy poster up on the wall. Other friends had horror stories of spent condoms left on the floor and a different girl over every night.
Now that didn’t affect me because I was rather spiritually strong at the time. (Or maybe I was just a shy geek at the time – who knows…)
However I have had many friends who’ve had roommates doing the party thing and it did drag them down. To say that those who want parties will find them and those who don’t will avoid them is true up to a point. However I think those saying this tend to have intentionally avoided such things and probably had good roommates.
Allow me to relate one story that happened to me. Two girls who were at a party across the hall knocked on our door to visit. (Flirt basically) Well the music was on so they start dancing, doing the typical grinding dancing with each other to try and turn all the guys on. Then they start making out with each other. Then one comes over and tries to make out with me. Now, I think one has to have a lot of strength to deal with that sort of situation. Even if you can avoid trouble once. Can you be sure you always can resist that kind of temptation?
I think those who are saying environment doesn’t matter likely were either lucky, or else simply made sure they had full control over their environment.
Let’s see here. I moved into the dorms at Ohio State in 1997, at the age of 16 (turned 17 two months in.) By the time Christmas rolled around, I’d had to demand my name be removed from the “scorecard” in the study room (actually, the only time I went in the study room was to show my visiting teacher what it was, and make sure I wasn’t out of line for thinking it was horrible,) stand up to my roommate and demand she remove all the photos of naked men from our front door (she put them on the inside, as a “compromise,”) and find out exactly how many of those itsy bitsy Jim Bean bottles your average set of two football player sized men and one 5’9″ woman can drink before crashing at 5am. Oh, and how loud they can play music and chat, three feet away, without technically violating the dorm’s community rules (you’re not supposed to hear things from outside the door, you see.)
I had been homeschooled before then. It wasn’t so much a matter of keeping my standards high as it was keeping from crying myself to sleep. I also started wearing mens’ dress shoes to church at that time — there was too great a risk of broken glass along the way to the institute building.
The one time I got the administration to help me out on issues like this? When two of my roommates were rolling marijuana cigarettes in our room, and making what sounded like crack deals on the telephone. When I added a comment about how one of them became physically violent towards me whenever she got drunk, they moved me into a room with an Arab Christian girl who spent all of her time in the library; the next year they gave me a single room. I’d had a total of 11 roommates up to that point, including at least four girls who didn’t think it was incredibly bizarre to become intimate with their boyfriends while someone else was trying to sleep in the same room, and at least six with moderate to serious alcohol problems. My best roommate, overall, was the one who’d do her drinking elsewhere, and stagger back from the frat houses around 3am (once everyone else had passed out.) She was funny — she liked to tell me how smart I was not to drink (drinking usually made her sick, and she went right from woozy to ill to massively hung over.) Then the next night she’d do it again. But, she respected my space, and unlike the drug users, didn’t think that strategic placement of alcohol ads over graphic Playgirl spreads was acceptable.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I’d have gone to BYU if my dad weren’t a vehemently anti-Church person. If I had to do it again, I’d probably go to a Catholic school (like Thomas Aquinas — 247 students total) rather than deal with what I did at OSU. And that’s not even getting into the mandatory, unannounced, and (woohoo) participatory condom demonstration class in University Survey. As I recall, it was the first and thus far the only time I’ve ever regretted sitting in the front row.
Bob (#20) and Arwyn (#25), I encourage you to read carefully Sarah’s post #30. It may be worth reminding you that niversities are supposed to be about studying and learning, not a way to brush up on new ways of partying. Presumably state and federal tax dollars (which are given to almost all universities, btw) are meant to help students learn, not to create an environment where students cry themselves to sleep because of all of the loneliness associated with trying to maintain at least minimal standards of righteousness. What exactly should universities do? Here’s a partial list, and I’m sure there are many, many more ideas that are not mentioned here. (By the way, none of these were available when I went to school in the 1980s).
–Offer drug and alcohol free dorms as an alternative.
–Offer dorms where students pledge to keep a curfew and are asked to leave if they can’t abide by it.
–Offer single-sex dorms where the opposite sex is only allowed under certain conditions (ie, men can visit until 10 pm but can’t sleep over and can’t be alone in dorm rooms with women).
–Monitor underage drinking at dorm parties using campus police to make sure everybody who is drinking is of legal drinking age (the motto here should be that if it’s on university property, the university must ensure that students follow the law. If people want to have a party with underage drinking on private property (off-campus housing), that’s impossible to monitor and is not the university’s responsibility.)
–Crack down on drug use and dealing (at Stanford, drug dealing was common in the dorms).
–More strictly monitor the dorm environment and offer quicker intervention when one roommate is uncomfortable with the environment created by other roommates (s).
The themes here are A)offering alternatives and B) enforcing the law. Seems pretty basic to me, yet I’d bet very few universities are doing the above.
Sarah’s experience is a horrible one — I won’t deny that. But look at all the others up here, and I think you’ll agree, Geoff, that not every college experience is like that. My brother went through three roommates during his freshman year at BYU because two of them were extremely mentally unstable, and the administration didn’t tell him that they were — not even when one of them was hiding knives under his mattress and talked about using them not just for eating. My mother had to get involved, and it was weeks before they allowed him to change rooms from that one.
And yes, universities are for studying and learning. But as I’ve pointed out already, many people are capable of doing that in the present university environment. As Bob points out, this post/discussion seems to assume that most universities are like OSU. And some probably are. Some may lean more toward BYU — I have a friend attending a Christian college in Oklahoma who hates the restrictions on his dorm about alcohol and girls and the like, which indicates that they have standards there as well.
And then you have schools like mine. Let’s see…
1. We do have drug and alcohol-free dorms offered as an alternative, and the housing rule is that anyone who wants to live in one is guaranteed space in it.
2. I don’t see how curfew is necessary. What if I need to be at the library until 2 in the morning because I have a meeting with my prof the next day and I’ve been working on this paper ALL day and just need that time? That happens more often than not at my school (where we do study and learn — because that IS the point of a university), and a curfew would hinder that ability.
3. Offer single sex dorms. We don’t have those, granted, but we do have dorms separated by floor, and rules about men and women not being able to live together. Then again, I room with five guys (and ten other girls), and the guys aren’t a threat. In fact, they’re our friends, and living with them has taught me a lot more about how to act around guys-who-aren’-brothers in a purely friendly manner without seeing them as potential future mates. I think that’s a valuable skill, and I’m pretty sure it’s not one that I (personally — speaking only for myself) would have learned at BYU.
4. Monitor underage drinking. Every person entering a party has their ID checked. If they’re over 21, they get an O on their hand; under, they get an X. Security makes rounds to all the parties. If someone with an X on their hand is caught drinking, there are stiff consequences — because, really, that’s illegal. Alcohol in freshman dorms is strictly prohibited, and if frosh are caught in possession, there are stiff consequences.
5. Drug use and dealing. If I so much as smell drugs through my bathroom vent, I can call my RA and the guys/girls doing the smoking will hear about it. The administration listens to my complaints and acts on them. I’ve never had trouble with that.
6. A roommate need only complain about the environment, provide evidence of their discomfort, and the administration will move them. I knew more than one person who moved during freshman year because of such a situation.
My point here is that not all universities are dens of sin and iniquity. My college (small, liberal arts, true, but also in the middle of nowhere where students think that drinking and partying are the only options for “fun stuff to do” on most weekend nights) already takes a good step toward promoting morality while at the same time letting us be adults and living out our choices.
Most colleges that I’ve visited (and they’ve been mostly colleges — I avoid the university scene) have similar rules set in place. Maybe many don’t, but many do.
So, I think it’s a little bit hasty to say that all experiences can be like Sarah’s (which, again, I don’t deny the horror of) when there are so many others that quite simply aren’t. Before assuming that they are, it might be a good idea to do a survey of colleges these days. It’s not the ’80s anymore, and there has been a big push to make things safer and more focused on learning even in the four years that I’ve been here.
My husband and I are encouraging Utah schools to our children for college simply because the dating pool is mostly LDS. My husband and I met at USU. (I don’t think BYU was for me at the time!) I think it’s true that you marry who you date. Where we currently live the LDS singles have such a small dating pool that I feel sorry for them. Their choices seem to be to choose among such a small group, finding love on the internet, or marrying non-members. Although education is the point of college, the fact is a lot of mormons end up marrying at this time of life. I want my kids to fish from a bigger pond! (I would include some Idaho and Arizona schools in that because of their higher LDS populations).
My biggest argument against Ivy League schools is about the cost vs. quality of undergraduate education. I think you can get a good undergraduate education at an affordable state school, then put your big bucks in a quality graduate program.
Arwyn, everything in your post is sensible, except that I would disagree about the curfew issue in the sense that it might be nice for some people to have dorms where people are not tromping about at 2 a.m. waking you up. I would have chosen a dorm like that in the 1980s if it had been available. I was very encouraged to hear that your school does a good job of monitoring underage drinking and drug use and offers same-sex floors in dorms. Again, none of that stuff was available to me in the 1980s. And I would agree with you that it’s not the 1980s anymore, and some universities have apparently learned from the bad experiences from that decade. I can tell you that many universities have not, however. Most of the state universities with which I am familiar are more like OSU. My argument is that these universities need to 1)offer alternatives like your university does and 2)enforce the law on-campus. Seems like we would agree on that.
I went to BYU and a solid graduate school, loved them both.
My kids (the writings on the wall, they’re just not that bright) stand no chance at attending BYU. I just hope they can stay righteous outside the walls of a Church University. Ho hum.
Isn’t it interesting that this discussion absolutely oozes elitism? BYU is exclusive–the Celestial Kingdom isn’t. My kids can go wherever they want. BYU, by the way, is a great choice. But, hey, my kid comes to me with an acceptance letter to Yale? Then, boy, go to Yale (if you want).
In case anyone is wondering, Stanford is a very different place now than it was in the early 1980s for LDS students. I graduated in 1998, and was there for turning point in 1992.
Prior to the 60’s (which really means the 1970’s, right?) Stanford was very welcoming of LDS students. There was a large institute and a large population of Mormons. During the Civil Rights era students turned their attention to the LDS Church and its racist policies. Students protested. The only time in the history of Stanford that the university president’s office occupied by students was in a protest against participation of any kind (academic or athletic) with BYU. They accomplished their goal and ties were cut. It was only during the last two seasons that BYU has played Stanford in football. LDS students had fruit thrown at them on their way to institute. The LDS student population dwindled and even after OD2 Stanford was know as a place that was not welcoming to LDS students.
I of course knew none of this as I considered colleges. Luckily it was far enough in the past that many other LDS students didn’t know about it either. We had a record sized class of LDS freshmen my freshman year and this trend continued. The student ward was bursting at the seams when I left and has since split. We had a wonderful and vital institute.
One additional change that happened my in 1992 was the indirect cost scandal. This brought addtional federal scrutiny to the campus and cause a change in the alcohol policy. It used to be that in order to purchase alcohol on campus all you needed was a student ID card. After 1992 you had to be 21. Drinking age was not enforced at small dorm parties but was policed at larger parties and all frat parties.
Now on to the suggestions offered by Geoff.
–Offer drug and alcohol free dorms as an alternative.
The use of alcohol and drugs by roommates and those in my dorm was never bothersome to me. The last of the smoking allowed dormrooms were abolished in 1993. If you wanted to smoke anything you had to be 30 feet from a building.
–Offer dorms where students pledge to keep a curfew and are asked to leave if they can’t abide by it.
Again, I never saw curfew as a problem. I learned to sleep with noise. In fact, my parent’s house was disturbingly quiet when I would come home and I couldn’t sleep. That said, it isn’t a 24 hour out of control party. During midterms and finals people tend to keep quiet because they are working hard, with the exception of the primal scream at midnight. If you couldn’t handle the noise you bought earplugs or slept with a pillow on your head as my wife did. To be honest, I wish she hadn’t learned that habit…
There are “quiet hours”, I honestly can’t remember what they were because it was never an issue.
What you are asking for is a conservative Christian theme dorm. I lived there, it is called Okada. 🙂 Sometime I will have to post on how Asian Christians refuse to interact with anybody, even other Christians.
Seriously though, it wouldn’t be any fun, especially for Mormons. There is enough self-segregation on campus as it is without becoming part of the problem.
–Offer single-sex dorms where the opposite sex is only allowed under certain conditions (ie, men can visit until 10 pm but can’t sleep over and can’t be alone in dorm rooms with women).
The only single sex housing for males are the frat houses. This probably helps keep the regular dorms calm. There is a fem studies house that only women live in, but I am guessing that you wouldn’t like it Geoff.
I really appreciated living in co-ed dorms. It let me have the opportunity to be friends with members of the opposite sex in situations in which dating was the furthest thing from my mind. I am anxious to send my children to colleges that have co-ed dorms. I think it is healthy.
–Monitor underage drinking at dorm parties using campus police to make sure everybody who is drinking is of legal drinking age (the motto here should be that if it’s on university property, the university must ensure that students follow the law. If people want to have a party with underage drinking on private property (off-campus housing), that’s impossible to monitor and is not the university’s responsibility.)
I think I dealt with this above. The only problems I was aware of involved high-school kids sneaking in to parties.
As an aside, I usually became responsible for the purchase of “equally attractive non-alcoholic beverages” for the dorms I lived in, since I didn’t think that Shasta Rootbeer cut it. Once I took over students jokingly complained that I was hurting the parties because even students that did drink didn’t drink as much. This culminated in a “Heaven and Hell” party in which drinks representing the seven deadly sins were offered and our room was the “Heaven Room” where only non-alcoholic drinks were served. Oddly enough, I was the only person to throw up at that party. One too many yogurt covered pretzels…
–Crack down on drug use and dealing (at Stanford, drug dealing was common in the dorms).
I never witnessed any drug dealing. I was aware of one dorm where this was an issue, everybody knew which dorm it was, and you only lived there if you wanted to. The only time that I can remember witnessing drug use by fellow students was at a Grateful Dead concert in Oakland. When I was a frosh I had extensive conversations about drugs with a friend who was a senior. He said things had changed a good deal during his time at the university. He had actually been using coke and heroin by his sophomore year. He said the university had cleaned things up a lot and he was thanful for that.
–More strictly monitor the dorm environment and offer quicker intervention when one roommate is uncomfortable with the environment created by other roommates (s).
I worked on dorm staff one year. While the attitudes probably vary depending on your RA, I always saw situations being resolved quickly and fairly. Your roommate is randomly assigned your first year. After that you can live with anyone you want (and occasionally by yourself), as long you are both of the same sex.
For me Stanford provided a great environment for spiritual, interpersonal, and academic growth. My LDS contemporaries nearly all agree with me. BYU would not have provided as many opportunities for growth for me. Luckily you are free to go to any school you can get in to, right?
I should probably also add that the prospect of Mormon takeover of a dorm was discussed between LDS students while I was at Stanford. It would have been easy to do. Simply select an unpopular dorm and have several all-LDS drawgroups (of up to 8 people each) rank it first. This idea was considered my junior and senior year and rejected as being too insular. It would certainly create an odd environment for the handful unlucky non-Mormons that happened to end up in the dorm.
As it was one of my dorms had enough LDS students that LDSSA meetings were often held in the dorm lounge. Another dorm I lived in had a large percentage of LDS students, but they had no impact on dorm culture since many were so involved in other things (mainly church and sports) that they didn’t have interest in dorm life.
Finally, I think I should add that we need to move past the “Alcohol is EVIL, period!” attitude that seems to prevail in Mormondom. Modern Mormons have made a choice to not consume it at all, which I think is fine and I have lived that principle all my life including in the dreaded dorms. A careful reading of Section 89 and a look church history certainly provides another way to look at things. While large quantities of alcohol and addiction are bad, alcohol isn’t in and of itself bad. I would think that a more mature attitude towards alcohol, as they have in Europe, would benefit the US, especially in college life.
John, I am relieved and pleased to see that Stanford has cleaned up its act somewhat. As you may have guessed, I was not a Church member in the early 1980s, but I believe the student ward was actually off-campus then in Palo Alto (I could be wrong). I know there have been many high-profile Church members at Stanford since then (Mark Madsen, Casey Jacobsen and many, many others from the sports teams and Steve Young comes to the student wards every once in a while, I’ve heard). The environment is probably significantly better now. I would still not encourage my children to go there based on my own experiences and based on the lack of alternatives for people who want a more “righteous” lifestyle. Again, there should at least be the choice of having single-sex dorms with some restrictions on nighttime visits, for example. I know what you mean about Okada, by the way. It will be difficult to explain to people who haven’t gone to Stanford, but the “themed” dorms can be very strange.
But, to answer the concern of many people on this board, my kids decide where they go to college, not me. I can only encourage them to make the right choices; they are responsible for their own choices as they become teenagers. And I will still help them financially regardless of where they go.
Heather, you are correct that one of the things in the back of my mind is that I want them to have a greater pool of potential LDS spouses to choose from. I want them to go on missions and get married in the temple and feel that is probably more likely if they go to Utah schools.
I would also agree that any school with a strong student ward and a good institute program would be preferable to the college experience I had. To use Kaimi’s example, ASU might be fine today given that it has a large LDS student population and a good institute program. My wife went to Colorado State, which has an entire student stake and a good institute program — a much better atmosphere than what I was exposed to. It is interesting to note “ca”‘s posts (#10 and #11) that indicate the importance of having a good student ward in Cambridge compared to a bad one in New Haven. Students would be wise to take these things into account when choosing schools.
Geoff,
The ward building is the institute building. When I was there it was actually owned by CES, which was unique. It is walking distance from the Wilbur side of campus, and just across the street from graduate housing. I lived with Mark one year. He was part of the group that made a decision to not make an attempt at cramming as many LDS students into a dorm as possible.
Steve Young was in the bishopric of the student ward after I left. I would guess that he wasn’t around much during a half of the academic year.
I really don’t think that there are enough students at Stanford that want single-sex dorms to merit them. I know that having co-ed dorms actually cut down on the amount of locker-room humor. Oddly the all female dorm was known for its own strange brand of dinner time conversation that visiting men found uncomfortable.
I have heard more roommate horror stories from the U and BYU than I have from Stanford. There can be trouble anywhere you go. I can tell you that all the LDS students that I knew at Stanford (with two exceptions) loved it there, and would enthusiastically encourage any qualified LDS students to attend.
My experience as an undergraduate at Columbia during the 1990s closely echoes A Random John’s. Having lived in the Palo Alto area for several years after graduation I know firsthand that Stanford has many multiples more member undergraduates (including two student body presidents in a row before I arrived) than Columbia did, or does; however, after including the students at NYU, Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, and other schools, plus the many actorsingerdancers who migrated to NYC, there were more than enough college-aged and older single members for critical mass. And that process has continued since graduation; nowadays there are four singles wards on Manhattan island.
I think Kaimi puts it well:
Amen (except the meeting-the-spouse part). College, like life itself, is very much what you make of it. While Columbia’s Greek system isn’t as extensive as that of a big state school like Arizona State (or, for that matter, Cornell or Dartmouth, by far the two Greekiest schools in the Ivy League), there is a fraternity scene, complete with a “Greek Row” of houses across the street from campus. While I had good friends in those fraternities, no unseen force ever dragged me to the houses or to the nearby West End pub on Saturday nights and put a beer bottle in the hand without my noticing it.
On the contrary, I do know I played some small part in dozens of people who otherwise might never have met a Latter-day Saint now knowing a little something about the members of the Church. I can only imagine the benefits the Church would reap if only a few dozen of the perhaps hundreds of high-school students each year who turn down acceptances to America’s top colleges in favor of BYU were to reconsider their decision.
My choice continues to reap dividends today on both personal and professional levels. The superelite investment bank that hired me out of college took, I recall hearing, 26 Columbia graduates that year, versus one out of BYU. The other member–a Princetonian–and I in our analyst class were together able to expose many more people to some inkling of what Latter-day Saints believe and are like. And who knows what may come of these encounters in the future?
I’ll have to second “ca” (Hi c, how are you?) about the Mormon group at harvard being great. I dont think i would have flourished the same way at byu. I made fantastic friends, and found a community there that was open-minded, thinking, questioning, and faithful. And simpsons fans. I even gave a talk on the simpsons in church. Sure, there was a party scene, but I wasn’t really into it, and neither were the vast majority of people. I had a lot of friends, some inside the church, most outside, and all were very respectful of my values and shared most of them anyway.
I think the original poster’s fears are overblown, though it sounds as if his kids might be happier at a church school. Although it’s true that from a cost-benefit standpoint you can argue an Ivy undergrad education doesn’t stand up well, the best thing i found about the environment was the quality of fellow students. Being surrounded by very smart, motivated, and overachieving people pushed me to excel both academically and spiritually in a way being a bigger fish in a smaller pond would not have. My experience there i would not trade for anything, even my large pile of soon-to-be-out-of-forbearance student debt.
I attended Stanford, arriving shortly after Geoff graduated; my wife attended Yale at the same time. Neither of us would trade our experiences for anything else. There weren’t many Mormons in my freshman class, but of the eight who were attending church regularly when we started, seven were still faithful members at graduation. I don’t think any of us were best friends, but we were friends and supportive of each other.
I was feeling a strong need to defend the student culture at Stanford, which I found very supportive, but a random John has already done so admirably. I would add that I served as a Resident Adviser and can’t relate at all to the experience Geoff describes, either as an RA or as a student before that. No, we RAs weren’t kiddie cops handing out tickets and reporting violations to the university, but we were trained, and tried our best, to foster a constructive learning environment. We had weekly formal meetings (and more frequent informal ones) where the principal topic was addressing these quality of life issues. We sat down and talked with students who were making life hard for their roommates and others, we searched out the best resources for those who were troubled, and I think that there was was a great environment for learning. It was in many ways a mentoring experience, and I had that same experience with RAs in other dorms where I lived. I’m not saying that there wasn’t plenty of sex and alcohol in the dorm and university — there was — but there wasn’t pressure to participate and there was certainly a supportive community for those who didn’t participate. In my experience, there were very few students with alcohol/sex behaviors that affected their ability to learn and many, many students avoided those behaviors entirely. I thought the university was very aware of the potential problems and did an admirable job of trying to make sure that things didn’t get out of control with reasonable policies that respected students.
I think that being in an environment where you are in a distinct minority fosters a cohesiveness that otherwise may be difficult to achieve and can serve to remind those in the minority of their shared values. I certainly felt that way at Stanford. Two of my sisters attended the University of Utah, and both stopped attending church soon after they began college. Neither was looking for an “out” and both were exemplary young church members (and still are admirable women). At a “Utah school,” both encountered a student life surrounded by a lot of self-identifying Mormons who didn’t really care that much about Church, and they kind of drifted away. I certainly don’t blame the University of Utah, but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if my sisters had attended a school where they were in a distinct minority as Mormons and had a chance to embrace that identity. Maybe BYU would have fostered that identity in a different way.
Another example I think is related: I moved to a small Utah community in 9th grade to attend a high school that was predominantly Mormon. Before that I had lived in North Carolina and was one of two Mormons in my junior high school. I was shocked in Utah to see people at church on Sunday and then hear them at school talk about their partying over the weekend. My high school had a pretty strict dress code, there was a zero tolerance policy for alcohol, there was certainly no talk of birth control (or any type of sexual education for that matter), but in terms of student behaviors, all were on display. It was just that it was (at least nominal) Mormons engaging in all those behaviors, which I found disconcerting. I wonder (though it’s only speculation) if some students attending BYU might have a similar experience.
I’m sorry that Geoff seemed to have had a bad experience at Stanford, or at least one that he would not wish on other Mormon college students, and it’s hard for me to imagine the difficulties Sarah experienced (comment 30), but I think that’s far from the norm. Think of how many people would be deprived of meaningful contact with a church member if we all followed Geoff’s advice. If someone wants the experience of BYU, I think he/she should go for it, but I do not think that Geoff’s concerns should be the primary motivating factors.
Encouraging children to go to BYU because they’ll have the chance to meet a lot of LDS folks of the opposite sex, and, we hope, marry one of them, comes dangerously close to the old canard that people, especially women, went to BYU just to get married. I remember my father keeping on his desk (in the Eyring building at BYU) a statement that Pres. Oaks made, that “we should forever banish the notion that BYU exists for any purpose other than to provide a good college education.” Are we backsliding?
That said, I understand the concerns. The classes at New York City public high schools didn’t provide much opportunity to find LDS friends to date, and neither, frankly, does the Brooklyn Stake. On the other hand, my oldest son, who graduated from BYU three years ago, is getting married in two and a half weeks, to a girl he met at church, not at BYU. My youngest daughter has met a fine young man at McGill University, who is currently serving a mission–but he was one of a very few LDS men at McGill. If things go as planned, there’s a wedding in the future for them. It didn’t take 15,000 men to find the one.
So, the concern is real, but the solution doesn’t have to be BYU, or another school in Utah.
Geoff,
ASU now offers “healthy living” dorms, open to students of any (or no) religious backgrounds, that come close to satisfying your suggestions. http://www.asu.edu/reslife/Mariposa.html
Glen, overall my Stanford experience was fine. I got a good education and I liked being in Northern California. But I simply can’t agree with the above. In Toyon, where I was freshman year, there was tremendous peer pressure to participate in parties, and the RAs actively encouraged people to drink. Many people regularly smoked pot in the hallways, and nothing was done about it. Cocaine was everywhere. You may have chosen to forget (or may not have known about) some of the most egregious examples. Did you ever go to a football game and sit in the student section? The party started with underage drinking (encouraged by just about everybody) at the keggers before the game. The Band brought in its own keg or two and band members spent the entire game getting sloshed. (Note that most of the Band members are underage). Underage students in the stands drank endlessly.
I won’t even get into the details of a student dorm where everybody on campus knew mushrooms and acid were being handed out like candy.
Most of the RAs I spoke to mentioned the high number of women with anorexia or bulimia, and they attributed it directly to sexual experiences these women were not ready for freshman or sophomore years. (I went out with a woman who nearly dropped out of school freshman year because of this). These sexual experiences usually took place because the women had gotten wasted at freshmen dorm parties.
In all of these cases, the university turned a blind eye to the entire situation. Yes, there was on-campus free counseling, but how about doing something about the constant party atmosphere that caused the problem in the first place? I saw no indication when I was there from 1981-1985 that the university was willing to do anything about this. Indeed, John mentioned that it took until 1992 for Stanford to adopt significant change.
But this is not a diatribe against Stanford. I had friends who went to all of the UC schools in California, Harvard, Yale, Brown, Boston University and many others during the 1980s. All of their experiences were similar to mine. And there are indications (Sarah’s is one example) that at least some universities haven’t changed. Again, I’m heartened to hear that Stanford has improved, but I have my doubts about many other universities and colleges.
Was it somebody’s joke to house ASU’s Healthy Living Community in Mariposa Hall?
DavidH, Mariposa Hall (the hall of the butterfly) seems good to me. Again, nothing like that was available when I went to Stanford in the 1980s, and according to a random John, it’s still not available. He says there is no demand, but I’m not too sure about that. If more parents and students insisted, it’s the kind of thing Stanford would institute. I would imagine the bad experiences of the 1970s and 1980s has led to pressure for improving the environment at some universities. Now, how about cracking down on underage drinking on campus?
Geoff,
John may be refering to the fact that “mariposa” is a slang for homosexuals. (Of course, there are enough versions of Spanish from enough different countries that there are a _lot_ of slang words for different things — some slang terms for gays include duck, lion, or hollow person, depending on where you’re from.)
I suspect the hall was named by a gringo/a with a working knowledge of Spanish but less understanding of slang terms.
Kaimi, I’ve been speaking Spanish in Central America, Argentina and Miami since 1986, and it’s become practically my first language, but this is the first time I’ve heard the word “mariposa” used that way. My co-workers from Spanish, Argentina and Mexico all confirm that they would use it, “el es medio mariposon,” meaning “he’s kind of effeminate.” So, this is why I blog: so I can learn new and important things.
Geoff,
You have mentioned that you were not a member at the time that you attended Stanford. Have you considered how this colored your experience there? Coming in to the situation I had already made a choice to not participate in sex, drugs, and alcohol. There was never any pressure to do so. I did have a number of discussions with my peers about why I abstained from these things and they respected my choices. If I had come into the situation with a “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” attitude I can see how things might have turned out differently and that I might have made choices that I would later regret. Certainly if you exerienced college life as a non-member and now look back on it as a member you will have a different perception from someone that is a lifelong member.
People were accepting of me, part of this might be because they could tell that for the most part I wasn’t being judgemental of them. I didn’t shun people that drank or participated in other activities. I was willing to discuss my views on these activities and their consequences with people openly, but I didn’t seek people out and call them sinners. I know people (mostly evangelicals) that did go out of their way to call people sinners and shun people. This didn’t go over well.
I didn’t see underage drinking as a problem in the dorms at Stanford. Not that it didn’t happen, but that I never saw it become a problem. That said I didn’t participate in the Greek scene, so I can’t comment on the problems of date rape and massive consuption of alcohol (this is probably unfairly painting the Greeks, sorry). Rape is taken seriously at Stanford and I assume at other schools. The topic is discussed in orientation and in dorm meetings. There are resources available. I would think that these problems would actually be very dangerous at BYU since the drinking doesn’t happen in the open and naive students might fall quickly into a bad situation that they are not prepared for. A BYU student might also be reluctant to come forward due to fear of punishment for honor code violations on their own part.
Again Geoff, I saw no demand at Stanford among LDS students for dorms that would have more restrictive rules. I saw no need for such personally. To be un-PC, I think that such dorms would be populated by recent Asain immigrants who are not socially well adjusted within the context of a diverse American college campus and view campus culture with even more fear than you do. It wouldn’t serve them well in the long term because it would encourage self-segregation. It would also create pressure from parents that are concerned for their children to live in such dorms when they don’t want to.
Undergrads that wanted a greater degree of control over their own environment would often live off-campus or in graduate housing.
John, you make some good comments, many of which I have agreed with, but this post is not really a “what is wrong with Stanford” thread as much as it is a “what is wrong with universities that don’t control what happens on campus” thread. I’d love to discuss Stanford with you for hours, but it’s probably boring to the others here.
Geoff,
I read John’s point to be not much Stanford-specific as a restatement of the general idea — you’ll get what you’re looking for. If you go to any school — Stanford, Harvard, ASU, BYU, wherever — looking for drugs and sex and a party scene, you’ll find it. If you go to any school for an education, you’ll find that.
There may be exceptions — Sarah’s story is pretty bad — but the majority of commenters have said that they have been just fine maintaining LDS standards at a number of different institutions.
‘Mariposa’ means effeminate and possibly gay in Spain too.
Or, to restate a little differently:
Geoff B., attending Stanford as a non-member, found an environment of drugs and sex. John, attending as a member, found an environment where he could uphold his standards.
This suggests that the question you’re asking — can I send my kids to Stanford? — is best answered by looking at your kids. If they’re likely to seek out education and avoid seeking drugs and sex, they’ll do just fine.
Geoff,
I keep bringing up Stanford because you brought it up. You used it as an example of what it wrong with all colleges and I am using it as an example of what can be right it you approach it with the right attitude. I can’t speak much about other schools because I didn’t attend them. I do think that my undergrad experience is more representative of what others on this board might experience than what you did. I freely admit that I think that Stanford is a great place for LDS students to attend. I have tried to bring in some points about BYU, maybe others with more experience can comment on the validity of those points. Having said that I will shut up about the specifics of Stanford for now, unless somebody asks me to bring it up.
One very general point that I brought up earlier and I would like you to address is the issue of experiencing college as a non-member and then reflecting on that experience as a member. How has this changed you perception of dorm life? What did you think of dorm life at the time? Is this different than what you think of it now as a member? Would you have interacted with dorm culture differently as an active LDS student?
I admit that I am also really tempted to talk about this whole subject of “what is wrong with universities that don’t control what happens on campus” in the context of Satan’s Plan and how tempting it is for us to try to implement it in our own corners of the world, but I should probably work instead. 🙂
Kaimi and John, you’re oversimplifying it a bit. I attended Stanford as a non-member who was definitely not looking for drugs or alcohol, yet it was something I encountered at every turn. I would have had to have been a social recluse not to have been exposed to it constantly. And if you will read the above on the atmosphere for students at football games, campus parties and even graduation (that’s another story), the university encouraged and turned a blind eye to an environment of complete moral abandon. John’s experience 10 years later was different, but part of that was that Stanford had changed by then. Hopefully, it’s changed even more in the last 10 years.
It is not as simple as “kids will find what they are looking for.” Yes, a kid looking to find drugs will find them. But if you are in a dorm with 20 other kids ALL OF THEM doing drugs and alcohol, it creates a different kind of social pressure than being in a dorm with 20 other kids ONE OF WHOM may be doing drugs. And by the way, it certainly changes your experience if the university actively discourages and censures and perhaps kicks out the people doing drugs rather than turning a blind eye to them.
Geoff,
I wasn’t trying to oversimplify, I was looking for more information. I don’t know your personal situation. While you say that you weren’t looking for drugs and alcohol, what was your reason for not looking for them? Does “not looking for them” mean “I had decided already that I wouldn’t participate”? Don’t answer if that is too personal. Did you discuss your standards with others? What was their reaction?
As far as the administration goes, I think that recent high-profile deaths due to alcohol at elite schools have probably caused even more changes.
I agree that living in an environment in which you are literally surrounded by drugs and sex would be unbearable. My brother was in such a situation at the U of U and it was terrible. I think that at some point, if your roommate is doing heroin and you have already asked him nicely not to do it in the room, you should call the police.
Alcohol is another matter in my opinion. I would guess that the percentage of students that didn’t drink at all in any dorm I lived in hovered around 15 to 20%, though it could go much lower depending on the dorm. Simply being surrounded by people that drink isn’t so bad. Now, if they are raging drunks and throwing up in your room that is another matter.
Oh, one more specific thing that I should have put in before my promise to not make this boring for everyone else: The RFs at Toyon were members and had been RFs for a long time.
I just noticed that Steve Evans linked to two different spotlight articles about LDS college students in New York. See Steve’s post.
John, to answer your questions, I was not a member but came from a member family. I came to Stanford primarily to work on the Daily and didn’t think about much else. In those days, the only things I cared about were A)being the editor of the New York Times some day, B)getting a girlfriend, C)getting decent grades and D)running the dish every day. I had come from a Northern California hippie background and was first exposed to pot when I was about 12 years old. It simply never interested me. Without getting into too many details that would compromise the friendship of people to whom I am still close, let’s just say that Stanford was mostly about drugs, booze, sex and rock and roll with short jaunts of A-D above. Again, there were no attempts by the university to stop or regulate any of the activities that took place. (I am not abrogating my personal responsibility, just pointing out that I would prefer an environment that is different for my own kids).
I have often thought about how I would have done it differently if I had been a member back then. I probably would have gravitated toward the other LDS students and spent more time with them. I probably would have gone on a mission. I probably would have had a lot less exposure to the partying. But some of it was simply part of the experience and could not have been avoided at all. There is also the chance that had I been a member already I could have lost my testimony completely and gotten caught up in the party scene. It’s difficult to know for sure.
Folks, my impressions are those of a protective parent trying to make sure my kids don’t make the same mistakes I did. There is a strong argument to be made that they would be OK at, for example, Florida State if they stayed in the student dorms and gravitated toward other LDS students and went to institute. At the end of the day, it is up to them. Perhaps they will be the types of teenagers who would be perfectly happy at Florida State and would end up active in their student wards and at institute and would have a wonderful, shining effect on the non-member students around them. Or maybe they will be very impressionable and overcome by the secularism of the students around them and decide in the end to abandon the Church. It’s hard to say. I still think their chances of living righteously are better at BYU or Weber State than at Florida State.
In my experience there were two broad categories of LDS students arriving on campus. The majority were faithful members that had made a decision to stay faithful to the gospel prior to arriving. I am not aware of any that became caught up in the party scene and left the church. The second, smaller category was made up of members in name only that had arrived seeking freedom from their parents and the church. Some immediately asked for their names to be removed from the records of the church. Obviously these students did as they pleased with the party scene, and I don’t think that the results would have been different at Weber State or even BYU, which they never would have considered.
There was a handful of students that arrived that were on the border in some way. They weren’t active in high school and were basically investigating the church seriously for the first time. Some became active and some were semi-active. Others never came to church.
My point is that in my own experience it was so rare for dorm life to change an active LDS student’s faith that I never heard of it happening. This might have something to do with the caliber of students. I don’t know. I am certainly not claiming that the same holds true at Florida State. I will say this, 50% of the priests in the ward I grew up in on the Wasatch Front did not complete a two year mission. In my freshman class which included about a dozen LDS men, one did not complete a mission. Oddly, he was called to Provo. In the MTC he expressed to me that he was less than happy about this call. It wasn’t dorm life that got to him, it was Provo!
It is cliche, but at some point parents have to “teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves”. I think that 18 isn’t a terrible age for governing themselves to start, at least in some ways.
I have a few thoughts on this topic. First, some background.
I attended BYU as a freshman, much against my wishes. Strong-armed is an understatement. I loved it. But mostly because I was happy, had a testimony and was determined to make the best of things. Then, I went on a mission. Came back and refused to attend BYU any longer. I transferred to a UC school. And loved it. Loved the church experience. But ever after have had a strained, difficult relationship with my parents. It’s childish. But at my worst, I honestly hate them for trying to dictate my college choice, my future, and truly ruining my college experience. YEs, I loved it. I had a great time. But a disjointed 1.5 years at BYU, 1.5 years at UCLA experience didn’t provide the college experience I wanted. The lasting friendships (or 2, 3, 4 year long friendship.) At my best, I’m glad my parents were concerned, if misguidedly. But the most important caution I have is, you may not respect the spiritual maturity of your kids, your ability to withstand temptation, or you may like BYU or Weber St’s low costs… but at the end of the day, you may be sacrificing your own relationship with you r kids by that disrespect, power play, etc. (That sounds bitter. And I’m not often terribly bitter… anymore. But you must realize, church membership or activity is not the only issue here. Trying LORD OVER your kids’ college experience is something like enforcing an arranged marriage. Educate yourselves, provide good third party information to them, not all from members or friends who agree with you, and let them decide. If they decide and have a bad experience or transfer–at least they decided.)
I heard all the arguments:
money, marriage, duty to the church, the educational quality is the same, just go to grad school elsewhere, you’re not mature enough, so-and-so went inactive at X school, you’re more likely to go on a mission, don’t you want to go to the same school i did, you’re being selfish, why go to a school without a spiritual emphasis, that school doesn’t like Mormons, there will be sinners there, etc., etc.
That said, somewhere after graduation, prior to law school in New York, I spent a few months back in Provo. Sex, drugs, rock-and-roll? Yup, all over the place. I wasn’t looking for any of it. But I was disheartened by all of it. As a frosh, I knew if I dug around, I could find that stuff. But living off campus, it was everywhere. I could not believe the extent. Seemed like the group of LDS kids at my UG were much more active than most of those in the Provo student ward.
Does anyone know what %-age of BYU grads remain active in the church?
And what about those who don’t graduate?
(I’ve known, or known of, dozens who left school and left the church–and not because they were kicked out.)
Now in NYC, I have run into at least a dozen completely inactive, apostate, ex-d, or voluntarily removed from church records BYU grads. And a couple of ASU grads that fit the same description.
I’m not anti-BYU. I cheer for the Cougs. My siblings are there. But it wasn’t right for me. And it certainly is not free of the corruptin influences you might kid yourself people avoid by going there.
I look back on my undergrad. Most of the kids that came to school and came to church at all remained active. We lost a few, including one of my best friends. But we were no sieve. Not more than BYU is.
We tend to think: BYU has 30,000 kids and they’re all super active and always will be. Heck, they need to be temple worthy to attend school! And then think, but those kids at ASU or Texas or Florida State or wherever… well, more than half of them go inactive. I bet that BYU, especially in the long run, isn’t on average that much better at retention. I certainly think that students like myself, who turned down top-notch schools, under pressure, would be better off attending HYS etc. Everyone can get answers to their own prayers, and some people should go to BYU. Just don’t lean on people, even your own kids, about it.
At my law school, we have former mormons from BYU and other schools. and we have strong mormons from BYU and other schoools. Stop looking for a magic recipe. And for heaven’s sake, stop pushing your kids to go to Mormon majority schools.
John,
Just to counter your two-camp analogy, I did know of one LDS girl at ASU who pretty much dropped out of the church. She was a seminary-attending student in high school; I went to high school with her. I don’t know if she was a partier in high school — I guess it’s pretty clear that my own connections to the party scene are pretty much non-existent — but I don’t believe she was.
I didn’t know her all that well, and I completely lost track of her after graduation. Five years later, she’s in a class of mine at ASU. She was clearly not an active member at that time, talking about going drinking with her friends on weekends, and she casually mentioned to me once that she had almost been arrested for public nudity a few months earlier (I think there was alcohol involved).
My point isn’t so much to suggest that this is contrary evidence (though it is), but rather to suggest that we might not always see the people who drop out. I completely lost track of this girl and hadn’t given her a second thought. (How many of your high school classmates _do_ you keep track of?) I would never have assumed that she had become a party person; and I don’t know how many other LDS students sort of invisibly dropped out.
That said, _I_ didn’t drop out. And neither did many of the people I went to college with.
Norm, I really appreciate your input, but you may have misunderstood where I’m coming from. I have stated several times during this thread that the universities my kids go to is their decision, and I mean it sincerely. Advice is simply that: advice.
My reason for BYU over other colleges is this:
Life, the Universe and Everything and The Leading Edge.
The science fiction community is stong at BYU.
‘Nuff said.
(yeah, other colleges have them too, but none have the longest running, largest student run SF symposium in the USA – AND an award winning semi-prozine).
Kaimi,
I agree that it might be easy to miss those that “invisibly dropped out”. For whatever reason I did know a large percentage of those that decided to leave the church right off the bat and I am not aware of anybody that started off strong and then left because of the enticements of partying. Of course ASU is a much larger sample size, so you probably have a good chance of having seen a greater variety of situations than I have.
One problem with BYU is that many parents send wild kids here thinking it’ll keep them safe. All that happens is they get wild and end up tearing many down around them. One friend of mine who was in a Bishopric actually had a girl try to seduce him while interviewing her for a calling. Obviously these are rare exceptions – I think that BYU students especially the last few years tend to be focused on spirituality.
The other thing to keep in mind around Provo is that there is a *huge* singles scene here. UVSC is nearly as big as BYU now. There are also lots of singles working and not going to school. Then there are all the smaller educational facilities such as beauty schools, medical assistant etc.
My concern is really dealing with roommate when you do the luck of the draw situation – especially off campus housing. At least around BYU there is the BYU housing rules for many apartments. That way troublesome students can be evicted. Further because people who don’t want to keep the rules generally don’t live in BYU approved housing, it provides better odds for roommates. Not perfect by any means. I had a couple of mentally disturbed roommates. One of which seriously affected my schooling. But I honestly think that the combination of the honor code and housing restrictions help a lot.
“Advice is simply that: advice.”
Geoff, I just have to mention that when I was a child and my parents gave me advice, it almost always seemed like quite a bit more than advice (especially in hindsight). I don’t want to question anything to do with your personal relationships with your children, so please don’t misread this. But for me and for many of my friends growing up, parental advice was not nearly as simple as any other advice we ever received, fyi.
Boy, I have never gotten more advice on raising my kids than I’ve gotten here on M*. But I’m glad I know it’s just that, advice (and I know I bring it on myself by mentioning parenting rules on a blog).
I worked all through my time at Columbia for the university’s student/faculty computer group. More than once, I ran into new graduate students, fresh from BYU, who clearly had no intentions of attending church. Although I had access to their contact information I could not (and did not) reveal such information to anyone, including church leaders and ward clerks. But in any case, Norm is absolutely right; they are in every city, big and small, doing their best to hide.
Not just BYU, but the Utah state schools as well; on my mission to Nevada it was the proverbial “Californian members who send their kids to Dixie or Snow College.” Speaking of which, I met plenty of Nevada Saints who thought nothing of using a relative’s Utah address in order to obtain an in-state tuition rate for their children. And no, I still don’t understand the rationalizing behind such actions.
It seems to me that it all boils down to roommates. Party U could be pretty tolerable with a church-going, reasonably righteous roommate. Similarly, BYU could be pretty miserable with a promiscuous drunk in the same room. My personal experience at the U of U bears this out. Freshman year I shared a room with a buddy from highschool. Both of us were mission-bound, and determined to keep our eyes on the prize (I had been strongly cautioned by my bishop to be on guard, since so many people, according to him, fell away at the U of U). I had a phenomenal, spiritually uplifting experience, and felt that very little could have better prepared me for my mission as well as that year. I got to serve as a stake missionary in the dorms, and our student ward had nine convert baptisms that school year (It is really cool being able to take investigators to Temple Square, or new converts to the temple to do baptisms for their ancestors shortly after their own baptisms. At one point, the brother performing baptisms was one of my calculus professors). Of course, there was plenty of sin and decay around us, but there was an immense amount of good going on as well.
After my mission, I was assigned to room with a smoking, drinking nonmember. For the sake of his privacy, I won’t post all the sordid details, but it wasn’t ideal. I moved out. My new roommate wasn’t LDS, but was much more tolerable. Throughout my time at the U of U, activity at the Institute and at my student ward kept me on the right track. (Granted, I did have to help a few of the Elders sober up before church on Sunday, but I suspect this happens lots of other places, maybe even in Provo.)
My suggestion for those concerned about the choice of schools is to look for an LDS roommate through the institute program. That way, you can set yourself up ahead of time for a more liveable situation.
Geoff – I was actually an RA in Toyon, 1992-93, so I guess things changed a bit from when you were there. There was no pressure to drink, I never smelled pot in the halls, and never even heard of anyone using cocaine in the dorm when I lived there.
I was a freshman in 1987, living in a coed dorm with a “coed” bathroom (the men’s and women’s showers and toilets branched off of a common sink and mirror area). That was certainly new and a little unnerving for a kid from southern Utah, but the freshman experience you describe is completely foreign to me. My nonmember friends/acquaintances who did things like drink and smoke pot and have sex were very supportive of my standards and never tried to push anything on me. Quite the opposite, they encouraged me to live up to my standards. I guess the key was that they knew my standards.
Yes, I knew of a couple of dorms where drug use was in the open and the showers notoriously became coed showers, but people who lived there chose to live there. I attended all football games and quite a few parties (though rarely the fraternity parties) — people drank, sometimes excessively, but no one ever pushed me to do the same. I don’t think my experience was much different from that of other Mormons at school.
“Boy, I have never gotten more advice on raising my kids than I’ve gotten here on M*.”
Geoff B.,
I’m not sure if this was directed toward me, but if so, I would like you to point out what “advice” I gave you. Just because you’re talking about a subject dealing with your kids doesn’t mean that any view not congruent with your own is somehow “advice” directed to you. You talk about how you raise your kids. I talk about how I might raise mine. Opinions differ. But I didn’t think either of us was giving each other “advice”. We’re both just sharing what we’ve learned from our own experiences. If one of us wants to apply internally what the other has said then great. But I haven’t seen much advice shared here, just personal experiences.
You make it sound like you’re only the receiving end when your original post ran thick with the most advice (if we’re using your definition by which you refer to the oodles of advice you’ve received here). But for the record, I think you, I, and others haven’t intended to share much advice at all.
I think Bob makes an interesting point about the weight of parents advice. Although this was not my point.
Geoff, I didn’t mean to mistake you for coercing your kids to do anything. I just know many current and future parents face this situation. My tact, for better or worse, will be: parents shouldn’t have preferences or shouldn’t voice them about which college children will attend. This gets tricky, I’m sure, if kids ask, “What would you do” “What do you think I should do”–if a child really is seeking that sort of preference, then maybe I would soften my stance. But, I think most of those questios are not: “How can I make you comfortable?” OR “Please make this decision for me” in disguise. They are probably good opportunities to discuss merits and drawbacks of every institution under consideration, not merely merits of BYU and drawbacks of non-BYUs.
I don’t think my case is typical. But it probably is common.
My mother wanted me to go to BYU. Badly. This topic had been discussed quite a bit, and she knew my position on the matter. So when I came home one day and she handed me an application I was surprised when she was angry and then sad when I refused to fill it out. She didn’t not want me to go to the place I have been asked not to mention, and it became a very sore issue. If you asked her again six years later if she was happy with my decision you would get a yes so emphatic that she was anxiously encouraging my brother to transfer there. Parents hear about the campus culture and assume that it will overwelm their children. The only way to prove to her that it wouldn’t was to get through it without becoming the frat boy she feared I would become. I don’t blame her for her opinion. In hindsight I can see how it would be very frightening for her. I can also see how it would be even more frightening for Geoff, having been through the experience. Again, a lot of this depends on the person going there and firm decisions that have been made beforehand. There was never a question in my mind if I was going to drink or not. There was not a moment when I even considered it.
My tact, for better or worse, will be: . . .
I don’t think my case is typical. But it probably is common.
Unfortunately, the loss of nautical figures of speech is common. That’s “tack,” not “tact.” Has nothing to do with diplomacy, but everything to do with a direction taken, or a change of direction, as in a different tack.
As to my daughter’s experience at McGill U., I asked her yesterday about the level of debauchery at the place. She said she wouldn’t deny that drinking/drugs/sex take place there, but the conversation ended with “Why do you think I chose the roommates I have, Dad?”
I think the experiences of the 80s are pretty non-existent most places- as has been well explained to assume that lawless drug and sex den dorms are the rule rather than the exception is really flawed.
I think lots of schools outside of Utah are great. I never really thought much about going to BYU, I knew it was a good school, I knew I could get in- I just wanted to go to a small liberal arts school. Then I thought about the Y and ended up touring and just not feeling good about it.
Instead I went to a great big state school known for parties because it’s scholarship offers meant it would be free- the University of Oklahoma (though Oklahoma State is supposedly a bigger party school.)
There have certainly been problems with alcohol here- but they seem to largely have taken place in private residences and in frat houses. AND the university (like others) has taken huge measures to address those problems.
Where does this most big schools are just like las vegas casinos statement come from? How much is most, and how is this statement measured or verified? From my college search it seems that most big schools now have options for places to live that are certainly condusive to living the gospel. From my experiences at OU and from friends experiences elsewhere It seems real clear that if you weren’t going to a party where you knew drugs and alcohol were present you would easily go four years without being offered a drink. (summer programs run by the university or just hosted by them are a completely different story- for some reason these three week to three month things seem to work by an entirely different set of rules- people act like it is a crazy vacation even where they live.)
The OU dorms are largely same sex by floor or by wing (all the freshman dorms are like this) and visitation hours are in place- mostly for safety and consideration.
Quiet hours are enforced, people coming in late from paties or the library aren’t a problem and if they are they end up fined, and if they stay a problem they end up not being able to live in the dorms (and as a freshman many places that means no longer welcome at school)
I have friends from high school who got in plenty of trouble at BYU.
In all honesty the biggest thing that would bother me about BYU would be the lack of missionary opportunities. How in the world are 20,000 members supposed to bring one person into the church each year as we have been counseled if there are only a few hundred non-lds students at the school.
I live off campus in a house I am buying with a couple of friends I introduced to the Church.
Geoff, I would strongly encourage you to look places other than Utah for school (especially since some of the non-BYU Utah schools are as big into partying as most schools outside of Utah) but look for a safe environment. Find a school with freshman dorms that have restrictions on opposite sex visiting hours. Visit the student ward on campus- see if the institute is close by- make sure your kids enroll. You can easily call the institute and have them check the roll to see if your kids are attending.
If what you are looking for is keeping tabs and making sure that there is a supportive environment that doesn’t let things get too out of hand it is possible to find that outside of BYU. In fact- it is a lot easier for you to know how your kids are doing because they will probably have the same bishop all four years of school, and have an institute director they know personally and you can know both of these men and talk to them regularly.
There is the challenge of new students moving in who want to disapear and slip through the cracks. They don’t transfer their records to the ward so we have no way of knowing they are there. But as long as you as a parent have made sure their records are transfered to the new ward and that they are enrolled in institute there will be people looking after your kids.
A friend who transfered here from BYU after her mission was amazed at how much access she had to her leaders and how much they cared about her. In 3 years at BYU she was in 3 different wards- and in each ward she talked to her Bishop once or twice- never more than 3 times. At BYU they make sure that you are coming to church because you have to be to stay in school. But somewhere with a couple of small but strong student wards has leadership that is able to really help young people grow spiritually.
BYU is a better option for some- but I also think that it is not as good for others. Don’t automatically discount places outside of Utah. You connected this decision with your no tv decision in the original post- and that decision was based on the “in the world but not of the world” admonition of the Savior. Though there is nothing wrong with attending school in Utah- I don’t see any way possible to interpret that statement as meaning or justifying the concept that Utah is the only acceptable place to attend school.
I think that this decision is important and should certainly be made prayerfully and with the spirit. But the spirit can’t direct you to do something you would not be open to or consider. If you aren’t willing to study out going to Yale and then ask about going to Yale- the spirit can’t very well tell you to do so, now can he?
Mike, thanks for the long and thoughtful comment.
Thanks for the forum for the discussion. I served as Ward Mission Leader when I first came back from my mission, and later served as the institute council president at OU, and found that there is a very supportive and safe environment here. The institute is not far at all from the dorms and it becomes a second home for most students.
BYU is a great place for many to prepare for their missions- but I think that a lot of preparation that happens in non-lds environments can’t be replicated in Utah. Every one here knows the Missionaries and has an opportunity to work with them regularly. As a freshman preparing for a mission it is possible to teach discussions to investigators, to tract and street contact, and to share the gospel with friends pretty much constantly.
Pre- or post mission there are plenty of social activities to take the place of the parties going on in the Frat houses down the street. I can’t speak for every university- but I do know that there are plenty of safe and spiritual environments outside of Deseret.
I don’t know about what schools are better to go to, but I go to the University of Maryland, and I have a lot to say. UMD is known somewhat as a party school, though it’s not as notorious as others. From personal experience, I have to say that I am quite scared for the future. Here, drinking is prevalent. There are some (like me) who abstain, but the social life revolves, entirely, around going to drinking parties (I spend a lot of time off-campus, I suppose that this helps me to survive). I have seen many cases of good people who stayed away from trouble for a long time only to be suckered in once. It is hard to be involved socially and not be suckered in, the alternatives are: worse drugs, poker, or R-rated movies, well X-rated since “Deep Throat” is playing in a couple days at the school’s theater.
In my experience, people who feel terrible about getting involved with alcohol, end up continuing with the culture. Some don’t, but it’s rare. Marijuana and halucinigenic use is also very common. I don’t hear much about cocaine, heroine, ‘hard’ drugs, I guess it was good to teach kids so much about drugs, we should just make an instruction manual.
Speaking of which, this manual would need to include tips on breaking the law. This is the biggest problem with the sex/drugs/drinking culture that I think will be the hallmark of this generation (that is, the upcoming cultural ruin of society): people do drugs, so they get involved with petty crime. One way or another, there is a sense of extreme vigilante justice and order on campus. Though not as serious, it has politics and substance of gang behavior. Maybe this is how it has always been, maybe not. Surely I look at the worst and think of it as common. Nevertheless, I do not mislead where alcohol is concerned. But sex and drugs is way up there. People don’t do it to be liberated, they just do it. It’s weird. They deny God, authority, and ultimately morality. Ironically they love liberal causes, I guess the light of Christ is desperate to shine, and that’s the outlet. Nevertheless, I fear this generation. People have learned to deny authority, undervalue ‘good’ work (that is, they can work ‘hard’, but not as often ‘honest’), and get away with casual sex, and drug use; all while having society, temporal, and emotional success!!!! This is the direction I think we are headed.
I know life and reality do hit kids on their heads eventually, but I think this generation has figured out how to fool reality, and I am afraid for their children. May the not have any (please, I think we need birth control! Those who don’t want the responsibility of kids should not have it, or the future).
Zack, I think there are two strong tendencies going on: our generation is filled with good, righteous people. You are hopefully one of them. (I don’t know you but from your comments, you seem like you are, thus the “hopefully.”) And then there are many people who are going to school to party and have no moral compass. And there will be a lot of them too. I think I have learned a lot from this thread. I think some people can do well at party schools and not pay any attention to the partying around them. But others get sucked in. Stay strong!