Students find Liberty in The Liberty Way

By Christa Desrets

Published: April 19, 2008

Two girls make their way up a stairwell and toward their second stop for the night, this time on Liberty University’s campus east.

Nineties music thumps through the dormitory halls as Danyelle Hudgens and Lindsey Frye hesitate at the door.

Typically, the room would be for males only.

But not tonight.

It’s open dorms night — the one evening each semester in which girls are allowed to enter the boys’ rooms, and vice versa.

“When you’re here, it’s odd to walk into a men’s dorm,” says Hudgens, a Liberty sophomore.

Once inside, she has a greater conundrum — deciding whether she can use the boys’ restroom.

Students at the Christian university are governed by the school’s code of conduct, called The Liberty Way.

In addition to academic responsibilities that are typical at colleges, The Liberty Way also requires students to live a “chaste, honorable and virtuous life,” or be punished accordingly.

That means abstaining from the stereotypical prerequisites of college life — sex, parties, alcohol, horseplay and late nights.

It also means 20 hours of Christian community service every semester and regular attendance at prayer meetings and the school’s convocation service.

Some students feel the requirements are too strict. Others say they’re too lenient.

“We promise the parents when the students come here that we will be sort of surrogate parents for four years,” said Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. “That’s one of the things that makes Liberty unique.”

A number of rules involve personal contact. Anything beyond hand-holding is restricted.

What about hugs?

“We have this joke about the 3-second rule,” said Elizabeth Griffith, a junior at Liberty.

Students make up their own rules to dictate what isn’t specified in the code.

For example, some students have decided that kissing is allowed, as long as it’s off-campus.

“They’re taking license,” said Mark Hine, laughing when he heard that one.

Students are expected to live according to The Liberty Way whether on or off campus, and even during summer and winter vacations.

The Liberty grad and vice president for student affairs, Hine crafts rules that the school’s 10,500 students can stick to. Students must pledge to adhere to the standards before they are admitted to the school.

“We’re at the point in size that there’s nobody out there watching for this stuff,” he said. “But on campus, we don’t want our students sitting around in lounges all over each other. This is an academic institution.”

Students also have developed their own interpretations of a rule against dancing.

Friday night salsa dancing at the downtown restaurant Machu Picchu, for example, draws in more than a hundred participants, mostly Liberty students, each week.

In March, Falwell discussed the issue with a Thomas Road Baptist Church deacon.

“The church made it real clear that they think there’s a difference between dancing as part of a performance and a social dance. So that’s sort of our standard,” Falwell said. “But a social dance, that’s where the church draws the line.”

Griffith, a resident adviser, said she issues the most reprimands for dress code violations.

But writing up students can be difficult, she said, especially for rules with which she doesn’t always agree.

“I don’t even believe in everything in The Liberty Way, and I have to enforce it,” she said.

Falwell said the RAs and others enforcing the rules make a big difference in how students are disciplined.

“An RA in one dorm might be a real stickler. An RA in another dorm might be kind of easy to get along with,” he said. “If you had the wrong people enforcing these rules, it would be tyranny — I mean it would just be a terrible environment, I think.”

Along with a point system of reprimands, students who break rules also may be fined, required to serve disciplinary community service or asked to seek counseling, said Keith Anderson, director of the Office of Student Conduct.

In severe cases, students are removed for a semester to rethink their actions and whether Liberty is right for them, he said.

Sometimes, they decide it’s not.

Students who accumulate 22 or more reprimands in a semester may be placed on disciplinary probation. A student who accumulates 30 or more reps for two consecutive semesters, or who commits a 30-reprimand offense may not be allowed to return the following semester.

“We only apply the amount of sanctions or justice necessary to help them move back into the flow of things,” Anderson said. “If they’re a rebellious student or they have a problem with the rules, then the sanctions may be more severe.”

Some rules are not Bible-based, but instead the preference of the institution, he said.

Darren Wu, a student conduct officer, used the example of students being prohibited from viewing R-rated movies.

“You have be careful on the influences that you allow in your life,” Wu said. “Most R-rated movies are inappropriate. ... It’s sort of arbitrary in a sense, but I guess that’s the threshold that the university feels right now is appropriate.”

Overall, the school deals with many of the same issues as other colleges, he said.

“The majority of our offenses are probably alcohol related, a little bit of drugs. Then we have a minor few cases of assault, sexual assault. So it’s very similar to what other universities handle on a larger level,” he said.

His office works specifically with students involved in incidents resulting in 18 or more reps. Anderson said those students make up less than 5 percent of the student population in any given semester.

Officials learn of violations in a variety of ways, he said, but in recent years have started using social Internet groups such as Facebook and MySpace.

“You’d be surprised. So many kids, they post (violations) right on there,” Anderson said.

Such was the case last semester for Justin Goins, a student who was disciplined for writing a curse word on his Facebook profile. The Liberty Way states that using profane language is an 18-rep offense with an additional $250 fine and 18 hours of disciplinary community service.

“I just like to be expressive I guess,” Goins said. “I didn’t feel like it was vulgar but I got, like, 20 reps for that.”

Goins agrees with most rules, he said, but has issues with curfew and mandatory convocation since he works 40 hours a week.

He was granted special permission to work around that, but not everyone got the message, he said.

“I almost got kicked out of college last semester because of so many reps I got for working through convo,” he said. “I always have to appeal stuff.”

“I think the majority of kids here are not fans of things like curfew… but they have a great attitude about it.”

Junior Rachel Hammond also has experienced the ramifications of coming home late, but from a different angle.

She plays for the girls’ basketball team, which is required to run extra laps when anyone gets reps.

Johnny Blanding, a first-year grad student, said that Liberty students manage to have fun despite the regulations.

The school often organizes activities as positive alternatives to partying, such as concerts, game nights, karaoke, food festivals and intramural sports.

But there are still temptations.

Like when the R-rated movie, “300,” came out in 2006 and he said he knew “like 90 guys” who went to see it despite the rules.

“Even RAs were coming up to me and asking, ‘Hey wasn’t this one part great,’ ” he said, laughing. “Liberty students know that off campus, a lot goes on.”

The hardest change for him was cutting off about three feet of hair so he’d be within the hair code. Then, Blanding kept getting cited, four reps each time, for letting it grow too long.

Finally, he had his head shaved at Christmas convocation last semester.

“I miss it a lot,” he said. “But in the process, I learned I was coveting something.”

As a 33-year-old returning student, Lars Larson has a different perspective on things.

Before coming to LU, he said his life was filled with “drinking and partying.”

At first, he was unsure about implementing the conduct code into his own life. But he made a promise that he intended to keep.

That’s what hit him one day when he was spending time with his girlfriend, he said.

“I was 33 years old and hanging out at my girlfriend’s house,” he said. “It’s no big deal, right. And then I looked around and I’m like, wait. There’s nobody else here. And I got up and left.”

The couple got married at the end of March and now don’t have to worry about that rule.

Falwell said he hears more complaints about parking than he does about the code of
conduct.

“I think students appreciate it. I do,” he said. “I mean, it’s an aggravation to them sometimes, but I think overall, it makes them feel like someone cares about them.”

He also engaged in bouts of mischief as a student in the ’80s, he said.

Like when he would duck down in a car that was arriving at the school after curfew, or the time he released live chickens into the school cafeteria.

“I never got in serious trouble, but everybody gets reps,” he said. “When I did get in trouble, it was for pranks.”

Larson said even though the lifestyle can be tough for some, it provides structure.

“You can walk off campus and go right down the hill and find bars,” he said. “But nobody goes there. I don’t really think it’s so much the fear that, (they are) going to get caught. No, it’s more like — that’s the standard of my living. You’ve got to make that choice when you come here.”

Nick Tucker (left), Jim Peper and Youn Kyu Kim pray together at the end of a weekly prayer meeting. JILL NANCE/THE NEWS & ADVANCE

Community service is part of The Liberty Way, with 20 hours per student required each semester. Here, student Katrina Wood plays with kids at Birchwood Apartments as part of the Campus SERVE program. JILL NANCE/THE NEWS & ADVANCE