2008 Woodie Awards
OPINION: You think WE'VE got rules?: Whitworth vs. LeTourneau
Maria Johnson, Staff WriterNot all Christian universities are created equal.
I transferred from LeTourneau University to Whitworth this fall. I've been asked by many people how LeTourneau is different than Whitworth, and I say, in complete honesty, that after arriving at Whitworth I had what you would call "culture shock."
First off, LeTourneau is located in East Texas. As many of you know, the South is part of the Bible Belt, an area filled with hospitable people, heavy southern drawls, and a good ole mutton of chicken and dumplings and corn bread at your disposal.
There they had the expression, "I'm fixin' to go to Wal-Mart here real quick." And, yes, there are still southern belles that redefine the term "high maintenance."
Like many Christian universities, Whitworth and LeTourneau have their own humorous idiosyncrasies.
I was surprised to find at Whitworth they have an unofficial "ring by spring" slogan, referring to a tendency for Whitworth students to get engaged by their senior year.
LeTourneau, by contrast, had a guarantee, "By the end of spring freshman year she'll have a ring or her money back!"
Although I must say, with a guy- girl ratio of four guys to one girl LeTourneau has Whitworth beat. At Whitworth, on the other hand, the guys have the upper hand because there are three girls to two guys, meaning there are more fish in the sea - or squirrels in the tree - to pick from. I wonder how Whitworth men feel about those odds.
I know at LeTourneau, the girls quickly realized that "the odds are good but the goods are odd." It's all right, because there were unofficial support groups to help LeTourneau girls through it. Lots of ice cream, chocolate chip cookies and chick flicks galore!
Even though there are many similarities between Whitworth and LeTourneau, there are also many differences. At LeTourneau everyone was required to go to chapel and must accumulate a total of 38 chapel credits for the semester.
Chapel was offered three times a week. Even if you're an electrical engineering or business major, everyone must have a total of 12 semester hours of Bible classes to graduate.
In addition, Residence Life at LeTourneau and Whitworth is also quite different. LeTourneau had what you would call "an open door policy," meaning there are designated times for visitation to the opposite gender's room. Whitworth has 24-hour visitation, but at LeTourneau it is only from Thursdays to Saturdays starting from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m.
Say a young man is visiting a girl in her room at LeTourneau; she must have the lights on and her room door completely open.
When Franklin Graham attended LeTourneau in 1972 he was expelled for this very reason. He had kept a female classmate out past curfew, and he is infamous for riding his motorcycle down the third floor of one of the men's residence halls.
The standards at Whitworth are different and at times hard for me to accept, yet it is a growing experience as well as a challenging one.
I tip my hat to the fine line Whitworth is trying to uphold, and hope that after I graduate from Whitworth this spring, I can look back on Whitworth with delectable fondness.
Maria Johnson is an opinions columnist and a senior majoring in theology. Contact her at maria.johnson@whitworthian.com.
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