On January 8, the Student Engagement office sent an email to all Wheaton College students alerting them to the spring semester policy changes to the Student Handbook. Reminders to review the handbook are sent every time the handbook is changed. This semester’s updates included new guidelines for visiting speakers, alcohol and gender pronouns.
The changes, which are not policy shifts, clarify language around procedure or issues that could spark disciplinary action, according to Paul Chelsen, vice president of Student Development.
“We’re updating things where we have discovered that there are gaps, and policies where things that come up that we didn’t think would come up,” Chelsen said.
A final procedural step was added to the visiting speaker policy, requiring that student groups that wish to bring a visiting speaker to campus must submit a visiting speaker agreement form to the dean of Student Engagement, Steve Ivester. A signature from Ivester is required before the student group can invite the speaker or reserve campus space for the event.
Chelsen said the Turning Point USA event on Nov. 30, featuring conservative podcast host Brandon Tatum, was one of the situations that revealed the need for an update to the policy. Chelsen said that students’ surprise at the Tatum event revealed the gaps in the college’s speaker approval protocol that should be filled. This change, he said, will provide a direct line of communication between the college and any prospective speaker.
Dolan Bair, senior political science major and president of the Wheaton College chapter of Turning Point USA, voiced concern that the new step could be used for censorship of student groups’ speakers.
“The new form could be used to control topics that Wheaton doesn’t agree with, so we hope the administration applies the rules fairly,” he said. “Wheaton Turning Point supports free speech, even speech we disagree with, and we hope to bring more conservative speakers to campus in the future.”
In a move to clarify what can qualify a student for disciplinary action, the Alcohol and Drug-Free Community Policy now stipulates that students are encouraged not to attend gatherings where alcohol is present during the school year. Students found at such events will be subject to a written warning from the college. This section concludes with a new encouragement for students struggling with drug use to join local Alcoholics Anonymous or Celebrate Recovery groups.
Of the three updated sections, Wheaton’s policy on birth sex and gender identity was changed the most. While not espousing a new stance, the new version provides more details about the college’s recognition of gender as a binary and employees’ obligation not to state preferred pronouns while carrying out college business. College-created forms and surveys will only include the options male, female and, at times, “prefer not to say” when gathering data on the sex of the respondent. There is an exception in the case of research conducted under the Institutional Review Board’s oversight, or surveys adopted from external sources that use a third gender option.
This, too, was an attempt to make clearer what the college’s theological convictions translate to in terms of behavior for students and employees. Pronoun policies in Christian higher education have received increased attention after two resident hall directors were fired from Houghton College in May for refusing to remove their birth sex-aligned pronouns from their email signatures. Chelsen said that the update to Wheaton’s policy was not in response to policies or situations at any other institution.
He also said the college still acknowledges the complexity of identifying as a gender minority, and seeks to communicate these updated guidelines with compassion.
“We’re trying to be clear about who we are, what we believe, how we’re trying to care for people, and also be faithful to the convictions, scriptural convictions, that the college has,” he said. “So we’re seeking to be faithful and caring both.”
The majority of Wheaton’s student body and faculty affirm the college’s general stance, but some are unsure about its practical application. Eric Larson, ministry associate for discipleship in the chaplain’s office, said he is grateful for the college’s commitment to historic Christian theology, yet perceives a lack of clarity in the updates to the policy.
“There are differing opinions amongst staff and faculty on the question of whether staff and faculty can continue to use other people’s preferred pronouns or whether the college views this as violating its principles,” Larson said. He said he worries that the ambiguity still present in the handbook may cause students anxiety.
“For some students, the prohibition of ‘other persistent actions or behaviors at variance with one’s birth sex’ feels more like a veiled threat than a clarifying policy statement,” he said.
Noah Chung, junior international relations major, said he’s grown in his appreciation for the college’s pastoral approach to issues like gender, and sees the new policy as a reflection of a biblical encouragement to handle disagreements and discipline in private, rather than in public.
“I trust the way the college will continue learning to address the situation of each student with careful consideration to what and whom God loves,” he said.
One Wheaton student who identifies as nonbinary and spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the clarified policy caused concern.
“I felt worried and scared for myself and some of the people that I know,” said the student. “The unspecified nature of what is and isn’t allowed for students is a scary place to be in, especially because they state directly: ‘We pretty much reserved the power to punish you for things and to decide what is worthy of that punishment.”
The student was referring to page 74 of the updated handbook, which reads, “The College reserves the latitude to make reasonable judgments about matters not explicitly addressed in this Policy based on the Statement of Faith, Community Covenant, and the biblical principles that underlie these documents.” The handbook allocates similar discretion to the college for other unrelated issues, including the no contact policy and student conduct policy.
The student also felt the handbook’s language implied that feeling incongruity with birth sex was incompatible with Christian faith, and that stance would make it difficult to feel truly cared-for.
“At best, the administration would only ever look at that aspect of me with pity and not with a vision of what flourishing can look like,” the student said.
Faculty have already begun to submit their own feedback on the policy through official channels. Kenneth Chase, associate professor of communication, is the chair of the faculty council and is in charge of collecting and summarizing faculty feedback on the policy and presenting that feedback to the administrators and the Board of Trustees. In an email to the Record, he said he has fielded comments from some faculty members who have suggested changes to how the policy articulates God’s creation design in relation to gender expression. He clarified that these were not criticisms of the college’s doctrinal position.
One professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of being misinterpreted stressed the importance of making policy language as clear as possible to avoid shutting down conversations or putting students in vulnerable situations.
“Wheaton College can be a difficult place for non-conformists,” he said. “Most students who come to Wheaton wrestling with gender identity come here to figure it out. And they should be! We want students to work it out here as opposed to a public, non-Christian school.”
Chelsen said he is open to comments from students or staff who have concerns about the Birth Sex and Gender Identity Policy, and feedback could be considered in future policy updates. Students can also share feedback with Student Government representatives and staff may share their feedback with Human Resources. Faculty feedback may be shared with academic deans, the Faculty Council or the provost.
