By Noelle Worley, Co-Editor-in-Chief
This morning, Student Development announced the student handbook policy changes for the 2025-26 school year in a campus-wide email. Here’s what is new for students this year.
Chapel Attendance Policy
This change means that students who skip more than 11 of this term’s 44 chapel services are subject to written warnings “immediately.”
Chapel is a 40-minute staple of every Wheaton undergrad’s Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. As of today, absences will be reviewed by the Student Development office monthly, rather than being updated at the end of the semester.
Students who exceed 22 chapel absences will be put on disciplinary probation following a meeting with leaders in the Student Development office. Students who fail to schedule and attend that meeting or skip 33 chapels in a semester are subject to suspension, which can last anywhere from one week to one semester. Vice President for Student Development Paul Chelsen said that disciplinary measures are not meant to “throw the hammer down,” but to engage students in a “pastoral dimension.”
“Attendance challenges are often connected to other challenges,” Chelsen said. “Could be mental health, could be physical health, could be spiritual questions.”
Previously, such steps were only taken after the conclusion of a semester. Now, Student Development can address subpar chapel attendance with struggling students as the issue arises.
Similar to previous policies, a semester of acceptable chapel attendance will restore students with warnings or probations to good standing.
To further expedite the intervention process, Student Development leaders, or in some cases the athletic director, are the only individuals students in violation are required to meet with. Past iterations of the policy included meetings with the student’s resident assistant or with one of the student chaplains.
New AI Policy
This AI Policy has been about two years in the making, from conception to final product. Alan Wolff, Wheaton College’s Chief Information Officer and the chair of the faculty and staff AI Council framed AI as both “an opportunity and a challenge for the College.”
Wolff said in an email that this strategic direction involved “praying for God’s help that our policy not only mitigate risks—such as academic integrity, privacy, and over-reliance on AI—but also align with Wheaton’s Christian mission.”
For most students, the opportunity to explore AI in an academic setting will rely on the classroom policies of their professors. The policy provides few concrete restrictions for how AI can or cannot be used to conduct research or complete academic projects because, according to Dr. Chelsen, “this is where the guidance of the professor is going to be so important.”
Uses for AI, such as editing, assessing data that is not private, brainstorming, or organizing, are all encouraged. “AI should be leveraged to enhance productivity, streamline routine tasks, and support learning,” Wolff said. The primary restrictions regard entering sensitive data into generative AI models that do not guarantee the information’s privacy, and using AI to invent misrepresentative or inappropriate content, like deepfakes. Mitigating legal risks and intellectual property violations were also key guidelines included.
A subset of the AI Council that helped to form the policy will continue to monitor the tech news surrounding AI, as well as campus feedback and the ever-evolving normative responses of higher education to emerging technologies. In addition to an annual review of the policy, the group will recommend “events-driven updates” with legal counsel and IT security as needed.
In response to a question about whether Wheaton would consider following universities like Duke and UCLA, which provide students with generative AI tools and accounts, Chelsen said, “I would not be surprised if it’s not a topic very quickly.”
Revised Hazing Policy
In response to the December 2024 of the Stop Campus Hazing Act to the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act, Wheaton initiated a student handbook update.
While the policy’s scope has expanded and standardized legal definitions in quick compliance with federal policy, the essentials of the original policy still remain. Wheaton has a zero-tolerance policy for hazing and provides resources for students to think proactively and intentionally about how to establish organizational culture and tradition in alignment with the school’s greater mission.
To that end, the policy continues to include sample questions for leaders to ask themselves as they consider new traditions to implement, as well as a mandatory consultation process for students to submit at least one month before the proposed activity. Policies are still in place to remove barriers to proper reporting and self-reporting.
“We’re trying to do something far greater than just what the federal government offers,” said Justin Heth, Dean of Residence Life. “We’re trying to cast a vision for Christ-centered community, not just saying a lot of ‘no.’”
The definition of hazing has been adapted to prevent any person on campus, not just students, from performing any initiation-type activity that “causes or creates a risk, above the reasonable risk encountered in the course of participation in the College or Organization.” While student concerns and reports will still be investigated under the student conduct policy, hazing incidents involving employees are to be handled by the provost.
Hazing was formerly broken down into subtle, harassment level and dangerous or “severe.” Those delineations have been recategorized into psychological, physical and activity-based hazing, which reflects the evolving legal definitions and best practices around hazing and prevention.
Reporting hazing incidents will now be required for all Wheaton community members, not just students. Public safety, the Title IX Office, Human Resources and the online Maxient portal have all been added as avenues for filing hazing reports. Readers are instructed to call public safety immediately if incidents become “life-threatening, dangerous, violent, or otherwise require immediate attention.”
Language Shifts and Policy Clarifications
“Significant” policy clarifications were made to the course absence policy and the protocols for students returning from mental health-related hospitalizations. In the handbook’s section on “Birth Sex and Gender Identity,” the term “birth sex” was changed to read “biological sex.” President Philip Ryken said in an email that the specification was made “for clarity and consistency,” as terms have been used interchangeably in the past.
“We believe using ‘biological sex’ is clearer than ‘birth sex’ about the enduring embodiment of each person made in the image of God.”
