Baptist University's Anti-Gay Pledge Causes Faculty To Quit

[doggie]

Got to love changing the rules in mid flight. I am surprised they did not ban birth control too. they did not ban drinking for some reason.

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/05/15 ... e_facebook

A university in Georgia is bleeding faculty after adding a new section to employee contracts last October. The "Personal Lifestyle Statement" requires employees to reject homosexuality, premarital sex, adultery, drug use and public drinking near campus. It also mandates that staff be active in a local church.

In an anonymous survey in April, only 12 percent of faculty and staff said that they planned to stay at Shorter University, a 139-year-old Baptist school, reports Inside Higher Ed. More than 50 resigned before the new contracts were even distributed, and certain departments, such as science and fine arts, have been "eviscerated," according to Michael Wilson, a tenured librarian for the university who's worked there for 14 years.

[salsa]

They'll get what's coming to them and the university will be worse-off. But it's all OK because they'll be RIGHT.

There is a hospital around here (maybe it's all hospitals, I don't know) who requires of their employees to sign some kind of a health pledge that includes not smoking. They'll help you stop smoking, but you are not allowed to smoke in your personal life and you are to make yourself available to be randomly tested for nicotine. I have the same problems with that. While I agree that a hospital must advocate health and wellness, Big Brothering your employees' personal lives goes too far, IMO. It's not that I advocate smoking, it's that employees have a right to their private lives and the right to make their own choices.

It seems Shorter's employees feel the same way. It's understandable that some things may be against the beliefs and principles of the theology of the sponsoring denomination (in this case, Baptist) and that the college would feel compelled to advocate for those principles & theology, but requiring employees to sign a faith statement is too much.

So, if this new requirement for the employees to sign statements of faith continues, they'll lose instructors (and who knows how many others) and have them replaced with folks like PP. They'll end up with what they deserve.

edited to make something clearer (that's my 2nd time today; I'm not doing so well)

[Anxious Girl]

I bet that when they realize they're loosing students and staff because of this, they will re-change their law, or will cry persecution! trying to make it look like that pro-BGLT people are anti-Christian when Christians like these are allowed to preach hatred.

[doggie]

I could see it if they had this policy in place at the time of hiring but to throw it at people already employed is a bit stupid. as usual I wonder if the people that came up with these rules can actually follow them themselves.

[PennySycamore]

The big Baptist university in Georgia used to be Mercer and Shorter was a just a small school. Mercer bolted from the convention in 2006 and instead associated itself with the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. There's been a exodus of universities from the Southern Baptist Convention: Wake Forest, Stetson, Richmond and my alma mater Furman.

[darareaksmey]

The big Baptist university in Georgia used to be Mercer and Shorter was a just a small school. Mercer bolted from the convention in 2006 and instead associated itself with the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. There's been a exodus of universities from the Southern Baptist Convention: Wake Forest, Stetson, Richmond and my alma mater Furman.

That's my alma mater too! Class of 1982! It's a small world. Anyhow, FU was still in the SCBC when I was there, and it hadn't been so many years prior to my matriculation that they first allowed dancing.

[mirele]

This story actually says volumes. It's not easy to get a job in academia even in the best of times and even if it is at a Baptist university. The fact that a significant chunk of the faculty would resign in a rotten economic climate and likely with no jobs lined up is significant.

I'm trying to figure out if a lawsuit is in the offing...probably not, but this is pretty egregious.

[Anxious Girl]

And yet another state not to visit untill it changes its laws...

[grateful1230]

I had no idea Furman left the convention! I'm very impressed.

[Elle]

I could see it if they had this policy in place at the time of hiring but to throw it at people already employed is a bit stupid. as usual I wonder if the people that came up with these rules can actually follow them themselves.

This.

I wonder if it's even legal to now start mandating religion considering religion is a protected class.

[PennySycamore]

I had no idea Furman left the convention! I'm very impressed.

Furman left the SCBC in '92, a year before I started going there as a non-traditional day student. I was older than some of my professors. Baptist heads would explode knowing that there's now a Buddhist temple on campus. It was brought over from Japan.

[grateful1230]

WOW. The last time I was on campus was for cheerleading camp (don't ask) in summer of 1991. I was 11, and I remember distinctly seeing many of the same things (SBC-ish things) that I saw at the huge baptist church in my town. We were raised Catholic, then went to Baptist church after my mom's second divorce (ha..) where I was a big participant because I loved singing in the choir. That church is actually more into SBC than when I was there, so much that many of the families I grew up with have left. However, they are NOWHERE near the fundies. For example, abuse is absolutely not tolerated, and women wear pants. On the other hand, I constantly read facebook updates about God being good because the grass was mowed or the pie turned out well. I commented a few weeks ago that I hoped God had time to solve world hunger after fixing that pie, and I was told that I'm being prayed for. :)

[alba]

This story actually says volumes. It's not easy to get a job in academia even in the best of times and even if it is at a Baptist university. The fact that a significant chunk of the faculty would resign in a rotten economic climate and likely with no jobs lined up is significant.

It does, and I'm impressed with the faculty for standing up against such an egregious invasion into their private lives.

That said, I wonder about the impact on students for whom universities like this are the only option for further education. If all the reasonably free-thinking and intelligent faculty leave, they'll be left with, as someone upthread said, the PP "teaching" them.

Obviously this isn't the fault of the faculty who left, but the university who decided to impose this.

One of the things they had to agree not to engage in was pre-marital sex. What if a married member of staff had had pre-marital sex in the past? Would that count against them, or are they only not allowed to have pre-marital sex from the time of renewing their contracts? I would think it would be the latter, because you can't revise past actions, but then again we are talking about a university trying to regulate its faculty's private life in the first place.

[SayNoToMullets]

This.

I wonder if it's even legal to now start mandating religion considering religion is a protected class.

And you know that it's this status they'll lean on when it come time to cry persecution.

[Talitha Cumi]

On the other hand, I constantly read facebook updates about God being good because the grass was mowed or the pie turned out well. I commented a few weeks ago that I hoped God had time to solve world hunger after fixing that pie, and I was told that I'm being prayed for. :)

:lol: