Shorter University host to protests for inauguration day
Shorter University Protests
While protests continued down the hill along Shorter Avenue by those unhappy with the trustees’ decision to require staff members to sign a personal statement of faith, Lu and a handful of students were gathered near the Winthrop-King Centre to show support for the policy and Dowless.
Protests Thursday were marred by a bomb threat.
“Yesterday there’s a bomb alarm, and I just don’t understand it. I wish people to love each other and to support our president. That’s what God likes, and if we follow what God likes, we get blessed,” Lu said.
As for the statement, Lu doesn’t have a problem with it.
“If you like it, if God likes it, and if we follow it, what’s wrong with it?” he asked.
The university commits to hiring only “Bible-believing Christians, who are dedicated to integrating biblical faith in their classes and who are in agreement with the University Statement of Faith.”
Employees must find premarital sex, adultery and homosexuality “unacceptable.” Employees of the university are also forbidden to drink alcoholic beverages in public.
It has been the university’s policy since 2008 to hire Christians only, and that policy is part of the school’s acceptance into the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities.
It is this policy that had Eula Kirkland out in the cold and sitting on her walker near Shorter Avenue, which runs near the entrance of the university. She was joined by more than 100 other protesters.
“I see no need for such a statement. Shorter has always been a Christian institution,” Kirkland said. “When I came back to school I found the warmest, loving Christian atmosphere with all the help you could possibly need from Christian instructors.”
Alum Michael Hillman said this is not the same university he attended.
“When I was here as a student, I was on the chapel committee, even though I’m not Southern Baptist. We invited people from many different denominations to speak at chapel at the time because we wanted to welcome that diversity,” said Hillman.
Dowless responded briefly during his inauguration address Friday to the protests and the bomb threat.
“Recently a few misguided people have used tactics that fly in the face of civility and respect to express disagreement,” he said. “In no way should anyone paint all who may disagree with this administration with the same brush. We continue to invite respectful, constructive conversation and productive debate.
“At the same time we condemn actions of those who would use scare tactics and threats of violence to express opposing views,” Dowless said. “We must keep in the forefront of our academic community that the search for truth liberates us from culturally defining norms within society. God who has revealed to us the Holy Scripture is our reference point in the landed and joyous search for truth.”
This regards Shorter's "Personal Lifestyle Statement" that employees must now sign.
Section A (Christian Commitment and Membership in a Local Church) includes the statement:
"employees are expected to be active members of a local church."
Several people have told me that Shorter maintains a list of acceptable churches that meet this requirement; they said that not all local Christian churches were on this list.
I don't see any mention of this in the linked materials Shorter recently posted with its announcement at http://shorter.edu/about/news/2011/10_25_11_logo_statements.htm
Does anyone know for a fact if this is true? If so, is this list public? Online? If it's not public, does anyone know which churches are specifically included or exclude
If anyone can clear this question up, I'd appreciate it.
1. Presidential Inaugrations at Shorter have ALWAYS been required attendance by faculty and staff, this year being no different.
2.Shorter is/was and always will be a Baptist College - if you don't like what the Baptist believe, go somewhere else.
3.There are NUMEROUS faculty and staff on the hill who agree with this policy, and if they didn't, they got out in 2006 = the ones who stayed, that's their own fault.
4. Shorter is not going to lose accreditation - so sick of seeing that one brought up.
5. Homosexuality IS A SIN - no more than being drunk, lying, murdering, stealing, etc is a sin in God's eyes, but it is still a sin.
6. GET OVER IT! If you don't go to school there - why do you care!? If you go to school there and don't like it, LEAVE. If you work there and don't like it, so do 9876546 other people in this world - but its your job, do it until you find something you like more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw
I am only affiliated with Shorter as a once-proud-of-the-school Roman and a friend to several who are heartbroken faculty/staff, graduates.
That Shorter's administration is openly enacting policies that embody bigotry against fellow Christians merely illustrates the level of hypocrisy being practised there.
That so many individuals are openly defending this bigotry seems to indicate that so long as it's for religious purposes the end justifies the means, regardless of how denigrating and insulting (even to many other Christians) those means are.
It sounds great that you would want something better for you and your family. It has been my experience that these questions you are asking takes an entire lifetime to really answer and it seems that for each person the answers and meanings are different as I am sure you have noticed with the differing responses by all sides during this debate. I find that if you are kind to others and try to learn from your mistakes that very often is a good start. I am sure that most other posters here will congratulate you and wish you good luck on trying to better your understanding of life and Christianity.
Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.
Shorter University is not owned by the Georgia Baptist Convention. It is owned by the Shorter Foundation. The GBC is a sponsoring organization of the University. The lawsuit between Shorter and the GBC was not over whether or not the GBC owned Shorter, but whether or not a move, by the then Board of Trustees, to dissolve the college, in an effort to remove the undue influence of the GBC was legal.
Per the decision of the Georgia Supreme Court, dated May 23, 2005, “The College's mission was “to provide quality higher education integrating Christian values within a nurturing community․” The record shows that the College had real reason to believe that it would lose accreditation if it did not address the accreditor's [Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] concerns over GBC's influence. The loss of accreditation would have a devastating effect on any college or university, including an inability to attract the best students and faculty and a loss of essential financial aid for students. By taking the actions it did, the Board addressed the accreditor's concerns over GBC's influence, removed the barrier to reaccreditation, and thereby furthered the College's mission of “providing quality higher education.”
The Foundation will also carry out the College's religious mission by continuing to promote a nurturing, Christian environment in which students will learn. Accordingly, the dissolution furthered both the College's educational and religious missions, whereas ceding to GBC's wishes would have likely cost it accreditation and severely damaged its educational mission. The Board thus fully complied with its fiduciary duties, as the majority opinion concedes.”
Concerns over the GBC’s influence remains and is only exacerbated by the latest actions of President Dowless and the Board of Trustees.
I would remind the supporters of Dowless and the Board that Shorter University was founded and remains a liberal arts college. To change that status to a school of theology would require a substantive change with SACS in order to remain accredited. Changes of governanace, control, FORM, or legal status require substantative change approval.
Furthermore, Dowless and the Board of Trustees have opened themselves and the University to censure by the AAUP. The American Association of University Professors, an organization founded in 1915, is “the leading organization primarily dedicated to protecting the academic freedom of professors” which, along with “more than two hundred other professional and educational organizations [has endorsed] the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.”
According the AAUP website:
The Association is committed to use its procedures and to take measures, including censure, against colleges and universities practicing illegal or unconstitutional discrimination, or discrimination on a basis not demonstrably related to the job function involved, including, but not limited to, age, sex, disability, race, religion, national origin, marital status, or sexual orientation.
Should the AAUP censure Shorter University, it will be the third such institution associated with Dr. Dowless to be so censured (North Greenville and Charleston Southern being the other two).
Per SACS policy statement on integrity, “integrity is essential to the purpose of higher education, functions as the basic contract defining the relationship between the Commission and each of its member and candidate institutions. It is a relationship in which all parties agree to deal honestly and openly with their constituencies and with one another. Without this commitment, no relationship can exist or be sustained between the Commission and its member and candidate institutions.”
Dr. Dowless’ continued refusal to meet with his faculty, students and alumni abrogates the rights of these constituencies and fails to meet the standard of integrity expected in an institution of higher learning.
Shorter University deserves better, its faculty and students deserve better and Rome deserves better.
The only hope for Shorter and it ever having the positive mark on Rome that it did before the new president is for the new Shorter Bible School to fail and for Shorter to restored to its former glory as a liberal arts college with excellence in education, the arts, and human relationship.
And why is homosexuality such a big issue for yo any way. If you didn't
like gay sex, after you tried it with your cousin that first time you should have stopped.
The ceremony yesterday had the atmosphere of a funeral. There were more students on the street than in the ceremony. There would have been more faculty on the street if we had not recieved an email from the provost that suddenly made the ceremony mandatory. And believe me, the administration is currently running the school by creating an atmosphere of fear amongst the professors.
I have briefed her on the situation and they are willing to consider possible legal remedies for impacted faculty and staff.
I once was proud to drive by the hill every day on my way to work, but now all I feel is a deep sense of mourning for my alma mater. May God be with them...
I had hopes that Shorter might somehow retain its previous character. I don't think I was right.
Look to see a mass evacuation by faculty and staff, and for a new student code. North Greenville bans all alcohol, tobacco, and dancing. Shorter may become its clone.
Whether you support the changes or not, the old Shorter is dead. RIP Shorter College.
I don't have any significant personal conflicts with the statement of faith. That is because that is what I choose to believe. They have no place though in an institute of higher education. You go to college to learn how to think, not what to think.
What a shame that the GBC chooses to act this way. It is time for a leadership change at the GBC and it is time for the GBC to get out of the education business.
What a shame.
A formerly proud Shorter grad and southern baptist
Class of 1984
Jim Morris