What are university churches for? Are they nostalgic relics, settings for academic rites, anomalies in uneasy relationship with schools' priorities?
university
Defense lawyers for University of Virginia student George Huguely said their client was a "stupid drunk," not a killer. He was widely known to have a history of abusing alcohol--hardly a rarity on college campuses. Huguely was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison for killing his girlfriend, Yeardley Love, after a day of nonstop drinking. The case highlighted yet again the problem of rampant alcohol abuse on campus--and the situation of friends and bystanders who know perfectly well that someone has a drinking problem but don't care or know how to intervene.
In January, the Century published my interview with Kerry Cronin, who teaches at Boston College and gives students an unusual assignment: go out on a date. Since then we've asked some college students to respond to Cronin. Do they find her dating advice off-putting? Valuable? Impractical? Strange?
Lisa Belkin, Christian Smith and others have raised concerns about campus sexual culture. We asked several college chaplains to comment on their assessment.
Maybe it’s because I need easily digestible print reading for my train commute. Maybe it’s my inevitable post-20s loss of hipster cred. Whatever the reason, I seem to be reading a lot less of the humor writing at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and a lot more of Joel Stein’s Time column.
Civic mission on campus
Beginning in the 17th century and extending through the 19th, establishing colleges was a primary Protestant strategy. Even groups like the Methodists and Baptists, which initially downplayed the importance of higher education, soon joined the founding frenzy.