“There were days that we dreamed of wearing jeans to class,” adjunct professor and alumna, Deb Stafford, said when describing how much Olivet Nazarene University has changed since she was a student wandering around a very different ONU campus.
Olivet has grown in many ways since its birth in 1907, including its student and residential life. The institution has revamped not only the infrastructure of the school but also the guidelines students are required to live by.
Stafford attended Olivet as a student in the late 80s, collecting an abundance of memories about the campus life and rules she had to follow. She recalled having to wear professional attire until 5 p.m. every day and only having one open dorm night a semester for the boys and girls. Ollies Follies was and is still a huge event for the students, Stafford said.
Current Olivet students have a vastly different campus than at the one Stafford studied. The students today celebrated the newfound freedom of wearing shorts to class and dining in Cru5h, the campus burger hub. Students on campus are thrilled about the changes in the 2020–2021 University Life Handbook, specifically the dress code upgrades where students can wear leggings and shorts freely. This has brightened up campus life despite the pandemic.
The leggings rule was a blessing from above.
Abbie Lambrecht, recent ONU graduate
Olivet’s rules and regulations for 2020-2021 school year are heavily due to the pandemic, but that has not stopped the students from enjoying their freedoms. They realize the new restrictions are here to keep the Olivet community safe such as: masks, social distancing, small events, and even the spit testing. These temporary limitations have kept the campus safe during the spread of COVID-19, so the students and staff are grateful for them.
Olivet’s reason for adapting so often is because the school believes in protecting the students while giving them the freedom to grow into mature adults. What some might call “strict rules” are in place to regulate the campus life so that students have the opportunity to deepen their relationship with God, according to the school’s statement.
Many private and religious schools have a reputation of implementing strict regulations onto their students; however, just as Olivet has transformed, other schools have also begun moving forward.
“We teach our students truth and we allow our students to test it in the marketplace of ideas,” Dean of Students, Robert Mullen, at Virginia’s Liberty University said.
Valerie Strauss for The Washington Post said that the world’s largest Christian college, Liberty University, has begun to evolve, loosening campus rules regarding dress code, code of conduct, and campus life. These changes have left a positive reaction from the students, just as Olivet’s decisions have.
Hannah Jones-Nelson, alumna and resident director at Olivet, has been thrilled to see the positive changes in residential life throughout the years. She enjoys the more lenient open-house policies and dress code changes just like the rest of the students. Jones-Nelson believes that there is even more room for improvement within residential life that could positively impact the residential assistants and the students together.
Even in 1996, scholars such as John Schmalzbauer were conducting research studies on the strict campus rules at these types of universities through the years 1960-1992.
Schmalzbauer concluded that the strict regulations are not good or bad, but the tension they cause can create conflict between the students and the administration.
From Stafford’s Olivet experience to now, Olivet has continued to move forward and stay dedicated to creating a refreshed campus for its students while maintaining the core values of the institution, and the campus is grateful.
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