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Posted on 07/21/2011 10:44:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Society is at war with religion.
Californians are boycotting Christian adoption agencies and other organizations that “discriminate” against same-sex couples. American Atheists Inc. is fighting state troopers in Utah who erect crosses on the sides of highways where their fellow men have fallen. Now a Catholic university in Washington is receiving criticism for being too … Catholic.
Catholic University sparked controversy with its recent announcement stating that student residents will go back to living in single-sex dorms. The university’s president, John Garvey, explained his reasoning in a Wall Street Journal column last week. Research shows that students in coed dorms binge-drink twice as often as those who live in single-sex dorms, and they are more likely to engage in sexual activity with multiple partners. In order to combat this, Catholic University will place all freshmen in single-sex housing next year, and all sophomores the following year.
Mel Watson, a first-year missionary with Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), thinks that the president made a good decision.
“I wholeheartedly agree that the only way to decrease these trends would be to implement single-sex dorms,” she said.
Watson attended Seton Hall University, a Catholic school in South Orange, N.J. She lived in the coed dorms there, and found that they were a challenge, if not an obstacle for those striving to live a virtuous life.
“The Catholic school I graduated from has coed dorms, so the hook-up culture and binge drinking were just as common there as at a public university or state school.”
The Center for the Advancement of Catholic Higher Education recently published a study that shows that excessive drinking and hooking up are just as common at Catholic schools as they are at secular universities. Religious institutions are challenged by current cultural trends, and they have found that these temporary highs are taking away from the mission and value of their students’ educational and religious experiences. Some colleges “face reality.” Others, like Catholic University, are doing something about it.
Catholic University used to have single-sex dorms, but its students eventually joined the 90 percent of U.S. college students who live in co-ed housing. Many religious institutions have co-ed dorms as well, but some, like Notre Dame, have stuck with single-sex residence halls. Groups like The Cardinal Newman Society hope that Catholic University’s move to single-sex living will encourage other schools to follow suit.
There are many who don’t support the switch. Students call the plan old-fashioned and unrealistic, while media personalities laugh at the idea of students being forced to live counter-cultural lives. And to top it all off, a professor at George Washington University Law School plans to sue Catholic University for gender discrimination.
Watson isn’t surprised.
“Separating men from women in college dorms seems backwards in today’s culture,” she said. “So many people are outraged by the move to single-sex dorms, because they think it’s taking away their rights or freedom to do what they want.”
This instant-gratification mentality is dangerous, Watson said, and it encourages a destructive way of life.
“Binge drinking and the hook-up culture are prime examples of acting on our emotions and giving in to what our bodies want to experience,” she said.
Catholic University wants more than this for its students. President Garvey wants his students to know that they are made for more than excessive alcohol and one-night stands.
“The universities have their students’ best interest at heart by separating the men and the women,” said Watson. “Today’s society looks down on temperance and self-control. We are constantly bombarded with images and advertising that bypass our intellect and hone in on our passions and emotions.”
Watson thinks that single-sex dorms can eliminate some of these distractions and truly help young college students grow into the men and women they are called to be.
-- Frannie Boyle is a freelance writer and a student at Vanderbilt University
So there is a Constitutional right to coed dorms now?
I wish all Christian universities would follow the example of CUA. Parents or students who don’t like this policy would have plenty of other colleges to choose from!
Let’s see them try that with a muslim university...............
RE: Let’s see them try that with a muslim university...............
I don’t think we have a Muslim University in this country (YET).
The question should be why did they have coed dorms in the first place?
RE: So there is a Constitutional right to coed dorms now?
The rationale for suing C.U.A is GENDER DISCRIMINATION. Any lawyer can stretch the constitution to mean anything.
We need to get back to a society in which PRIVATE institutions can make their own rules.
Such rules could be highly politically incorrect and might even ...sniffle... insult the habitually “offended”, but if that is what a private entity chooses to do on their own property, it is none of the damn business of the government.
First Muslim University Opens in U.S.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2010/August/First-Muslim-University-Opens-in-US/
Going to any university is a matter of choice. If a university has separate dorms and you don’t like it, don’t go there. Push back is long in coming.
I guess my Alma Mater got caught up in the free-wheeling "anything goes" milieu. Good to see they're stepping back from the slippery slope.
Think of all the money saved by having co-ed showers.
The University has found that when you put young men and women in the prime of their sxual lives in the same dorms together they drink more often and copulate.
Gee: I could have told them that. Saved them a lot of time with their investigation.
Now parents who sent their kids to these coed schools already knew that I am sure.Maybe they just didn’t care.
A colleague took a bunch of junior high kids on an overnight trip. They all slept on a gym floor. She was up all night keeping them out of the others’ sleeping bags. “The were like a bunch of rabbits in heat, she said. On another occasion, a teacher and several parent chaperones took a dozen or more kids on a senior trip to New Orleans. That teacher spent the night keeping them from room hopping. “Only” two girls got pregnant.” These were “good” kids, and this was the early sixties. Like we used to say: avoid the occasions of sin. Do not walk down dark allies after midnight.
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