Tag: alcohol

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Campus News

Wesleyan Church Adjusts Alcohol Guidelines

Though the Wesleyan Church adjusted its alcohol guidelines, Houghton College’s policy regarding alcohol consumption will remain the same, according to Vice President of Student Life Rob Pool.

www.flickr.com/photos/zeevveez/7131075647
www.flickr.com/photos/zeevveez/

The Wesleyan Church, Houghton College’s sponsoring denomination, decided to reevaluate its longstanding membership policy at its general conference in June. According to the denomination’s website, the church discontinued its two-tier system of membership in favor of one single membership body. Characteristic of the former system was alcohol use: “community membership”, the lower tier, did not prohibit alcohol use. “Covenant membership”, the level a Wesleyan must reach to serve in various leadership functions in the Wesleyan Church, prohibited drinking. “Attendees can have a sense of belonging around the core scriptural beliefs of The Wesleyan Church without the church putting an expectation of spiritual maturity upon them prior to belonging”, the denomination said in a statement issued in August.

Those who wish to serve in ministerial positions, direct Sunday school programs, serve on church boards, and similar leadership positions are still required to abstain from alcohol.

Houghton College, along with Kingswood University, Southern Wesleyan University, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, and Indiana Wesleyan University are considered ministries of the Wesleyan Church, according to Pool. While changes in the denomination’s policy would not “directly change” policies at these schools, “they would inform them” Pool said. The Community Covenant, signed by faculty, staff, and students still stands in regard to Houghton’s alcohol free policy. “I have not heard of any faculty, staff, or students proposing a change to the campus alcohol policy,” he said.

Assistant resident director Ian DeHass ‘17 said “ In res life, we take our cues from the denomination, but I think we all value a space where alcohol isn’t an issue that we have to consider. We know people from other schools that allow alcohol, and most of their time is spent in conduct hearings, and for us that’s not really where we want to spend our time. We want to spend our time thinking about diversity and thinking about how we can best help our students grow. And I think that reason alone is good enough reason for why we wouldn’t want to add alcohol into the picture at Houghton.”

Pastor of Houghton Wesleyan Church, Wes Oden, said the change “really doesn’t have anything specifically to do with alcohol, but with membership requirements. As I understand it, they have moved [alcohol] from membership requirements to a different section of the Discipline. Instead of [abstinence] being a requirement [for membership] it becomes a matter of taking responsibility over what it means to be a member of the Body of Christ.”

Joseph Jennings, Superintendent of the Western New York District of the Wesleyan Church, said “I don’t expect any changes to be made in the policies of any of our Wesleyan colleges” regarding alcohol. He said he expects Houghton College’s alcohol policy to stay as is “for at least the next ten years.”

Though the Church’s new guidelines are expected to go into effect this month, Pool said any change in Houghton College’s alcohol policy would need to be initiated by a petition to amend the Community Covenant.

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Opinions

Lessons from a Legacy: Battling Depression

Not many people know that I come from a long line of men and women with depression and suicidal attitudes, including two suicides within my lifetime. In fact, my uncle killed himself the month before I came to Houghton. Firsthand, between high school and college, I have experienced the mind and body numbing effects of depression on my body, my mind, and my soul. As you can imagine, I have spent many hours wondering about my family history, my legacy of mental illness. Now, recently becoming engaged to be married, the fear that I will pass on such a legacy to my future children is crippling. Can there truly be nothing new under the sun? Are we doomed to struggle under the difficulties of our parents, and their parents before them?

Photo by: Anthony Burdo
Photo by: Anthony Burdo

I have found my comfort in psychology. To those of you not familiar to the discipline, that may sound as though I have found comfort by embracing the cold sterility of scientific reasoning and the dissociation from emotional expression. Quite the opposite in my case.

Echoed throughout all psychology courses and sub-disciplines, students are taught the complex relationship between nature and nurture, which was debated long before psychologists first began questioning this relationship. Are we just a product of our circumstances, our culture, our family and friends, or are we just

pre-programmed by a script of code by a genetic instruction manuals? The simple fact is both nature and nurture are critical to our lives, and they are so intertwined in their effects that is impossible to trace an element about ourselves to one locus point.

Yes, depression seems to run as a swath through the genetic code, but as I realized over my very depression-wrought sophomore year, there is more than genetics involved in the severity of depression in a person’s life.  In my extended family, alcohol is a large environmental factor that has systematically ruined many lives. I don’t mean drinking alcohol in moderation is inherently corrupting or evil. However, drinking was, and still is used by large portions of my extended family as an escape, one that they use daily. My uncle was always depressed, but it was when he was drunk that his suicidal thoughts became so severe that he enacted them. He was drunk on the night he shot himself. My grandmother was reduced to a husk of her former self by her alcoholism, which destroyed the relationship my mother wished to have with her in her teenage years. This is why my mother abstains from all alcohol, and why I have determined never to drink as an escape. Alcohol lowers inhibition and lets the chilling claws of depression sink in.

kevinquote

The failings in family’s legacy also taught me something else important in my battle with depression: the dangers of societal withdrawal. My uncle lived alone in a two story house, my grandmother spent a great deal of time away from her children and husband even within her own house, and my great-uncle’s body wasn’t discovered in his trailer until days after he killed himself. I’m not saying a romantic and/or sexual relationship combats depression (though I believe a healthy one may), it is making connections to even one friend that can act as a lifeline in particularly low times. My girlfriend was my lifeline during my sophomore year, but I learned the value of having many lifelines by finding friends who truly cared about my well-being. Houghton is one of the best places to find those connections, and I urge you to seek them out.

My legacy has left me with a lifelong struggle of depression, but it has taught me what exacerbates depression, such as alcoholism, and cutting off social and familial ties. We are not resigned to the same fate as our generations before us. We can learn from our legacies and fix both our own lives, and those of our children even if we can never solve the entire problem. This is what I seek to do, and I hope you all do as well, whether the topic relates to depression, abuse, spirituality, or sexuality.

Kevin is a senior majoring in psychology and writing.

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Opinions

Yik Yak: Why I Keep It

“You know what Twitter needs? Less accountability. That will improve things.” This posted on Yik Yak by an anonymous poster using the pseudonym “Dean Michael Jordan.”

These days, social networks seem to be springing out of the digital woodwork. Every web developer and app designer is trying to find the niche that is as-yet untouched. Some new social networks stick around well. Others do not. Eventually, most fade in popularity, becoming replaced with others that do the same thing, only better.

michaelYik Yak is an app that has, so far, stuck around. For those unfamiliar with the name, allow me to explain. Yik Yak is a smartphone application that allows its users to post a short amount of text (200 characters or less), much like many other social networks. The main difference between Yik Yak and similar networks is its addition of anonymity. Those who post (“yak”) to the app are completely anonymous, their words being presented without credit given to anyone. If a user so chooses, they can adopt a pseudonym to post under. However, anyone can adopt each other’s pseudonyms or change names at any time, and so no true identity is revealed.

Without any sort of identification, Yik Yak needs another way to connect its users. It chooses proximity. Users see posts from people who are using the app nearby. Readers can then vote yaks up or down, helping them reach a status of popularity, or deleting them from the feed with an overwhelming negative vote. It is also possible to reply to yaks, and to have a conversation in this way. The result for those of us who live in Houghton is a feed of thoughts, feelings, jokes, and complaints written and tailored by Houghton students, for Houghton students. And sorry for this disillusionment, but if you look through our feed, you might not like what you find.

When a given semester ends, students are afforded the opportunity to give anonymous feedback about their professors. I know I am not the only one who takes this opportunity to let out the feelings, good and bad, that I keep to myself throughout the semester. Yik Yak is a lot like these reviews. The danger comes from the pressure to write popular yaks. The Houghton feed brings up many more negative comments than I hear around campus, simply because – let’s face it – we can all agree on what we dislike about Houghton. You’ve heard it all before: the food is bad, college is hard, sleep is rare, and… people break the community covenant?

MichaelCarpenterYes, it’s true, and it’s upsetting. We have a “dark side.” I have seen posts on Yik Yak about things ranging from sexual frustration (no!), to seeking someone who will sell drugs (never!), to a recent, “Houghton, what is your favorite beer?” These are sad and, for some, shocking expressions of a group of college students who, hello, came to a Christian college. Where did they learn this evil, and why are they here?

Well, at least “they” are honest about it. That might seem like a small comfort, but I mean it. These things are real, and actually happen on a regular basis. If we never talk about, for example, sex, drugs, alcohol, or how and why we are hurting, there can never be solutions to these issues. Yik Yak has created a safe space to express it all honestly. Now, let’s not confuse honesty with accuracy or authenticity. Yik Yak is NOT a perfect representation of who we are. It’s biased toward those who use smartphones, desire a place for anonymous communication, and aren’t overly frustrated with what they read. But it is entirely made up of Houghton residents. No one else is posting in the Houghton feed. They can’t.

So, then, what is the best response? Well, I’m going to keep my Yik Yak. I keep it because I don’t need to hide from mere words, especially words that give me a greater understanding of those around me, and how to love them. And I know that I am salt and light (for the Bible tells me so), so I’m going to act like it. Our feed could always use a bit more positivity and a bit more love. Of course, Yik Yak is not my mission field, and needn’t be yours, either. Most Houghton students are Christian already, and Yik Yak does not allow enough personal connection to evangelize. But I won’t be posting anything that I wouldn’t be proud to own up to. You shouldn’t either.