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Tar Heel Blues
Jesus wept.
Gospel of John 11:35
On a day around Clemson when all Tiger faithful are asked to wear orange, I opted yesterday morning for the Tar Heel blue polo in my closet. I know, strange thing for a graduate of Duke who's living in Clemson to do, but Tar Heel blue has been on my mind since watching the news Thursday night and hearing about the violent murder of the senior student body president, Eve Marie Carson. A true college town, Chapel Hill is one of my favorite towns in the Southeast. I often tell folks that the Clemson of today is probably a lot like the Chapel Hill of the late fifties and sixties. While the Franklin Street of yesteryear was like today's College Avenue in Clemson, this famous thoroughfare has been transformed in recent years into a great place to shop and enjoy fine dining. Today, Franklin Street still lies at the heart of a beautiful, idyllic campus founded in 1795, pre-dating Clemson and many other Southern schools by nearly 100 years or more. Over the last few days I am sure that the members of the Chapel Hill community (and alumni throughout the world) have all been saying, "This kind of thing just doesn't happen here." Surely the folks in Auburn have been saying the same thing, just like the folks in Blacksburg last spring. It is hard to believe that this May will already mark the two year anniversary of the murder of one of our own here in Clemson, Tiffany Souers. While the weapon of choice for the cold-blooded murderers have varied, the heartache, pain, anger and confusion experienced by families, schools and entire communities has been similar. The first image that came to mind for me as I contemplated this horrible news was of Jesus upon hearing of Lazarus' death - he wept. If I believe anything, I believe that Jesus wept when he watched what happened to Eve Carson early yesterday morning. And I believe that he still weeps and grieves for our world, where pain and suffering seem to be the only commodity in great supply these days. Why do such horrible things happen in places that should be safe like college campuses? Why does it seem that our world is going to hell? Why, God, do you allow someone's life to be extinguished at such a young age? In doing a little research, I discovered that there has been much conversation about the rise of violence on college campuses for quite some time now. A 1994 USA Today special section published portions of a study commissioned by the Society for the Advancement of Education that asked the question, "What is Behind the Growth of Violence on College Campuses?" This study, like most of the others that I could find, linked the rise in violence on college campuses to the increased abuse of alcohol and drugs. One observation from the 1994 study has proven to be quite prophetic. "Although the legal drinking age has been raised to 21 in each state, the national community of 18- to 20-year-olds simply does not accept this constraint." Yes, that was my mindset in the mid to late 1980s, and it continues to be the pervasive view at Clemson and other schools today. More recent studies continue to cite alcohol and drug abuse as one of the primary causes for campus violence, with other concerns being added to the list. A 2002 report by the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention noted that other risk factors that foster and perpetuate violence include hazing practices (often within fraternities or athletic teams) and intolerance of individual differences. This study cited two statistics that I found quite alarming, especially as a father preparing to send two teenage daughters to college in the coming years. The first - that 20-25% of college women are the victims of an attempted or completed rape during their college careers - and the second - that 25% of college men in one study on dating violence admitted to slapping, pushing or restraining a female partner - brought to mind's the Apostle Paul's famous words from Romans 8 (a quote of Psalm 44):
For your sake we face death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
But let me say nothing more about the sources of the problem. If we are honest with another, I think we can all agree that ours is a culture that (1) celebrates and peddles violence and (2) turns a blind eye to stressed out college students who just "wanna have a good time." What, if anything, might the Church say or do to shed some light on the darkness, to make our campuses and world a place where such events might be prevented or at least curtailed? Is weeping like Jesus enough? In Lazarus' story, we know that the story did not end with Jesus' tears. Our story too, if we claim to "believe in him" cannot end there either. Sure, we know that sin and evil have been a part of our history since Cain and Abel and will continue to be until Kingdom come. But in the interim, followers of Jesus are called to enter into the dead-end tombs of hatred, degradation, excess and violence that have claimed too many of our youth and college students. We are called to speak words of life, of hope and of resurrection - just as Jesus did to Lazarus. We cannot sit back as the "Death Eaters" of racism, misogyny, homophobia, intolerance and hypermasculinity to have their way. Generally, I do not like to offer specific suggestions about how to "solve" a problem, leaning instead on the work of the Holy Spirit to touch and inspire people's hearts and minds. However, on this topic I would like to offers some suggestions for how might the people of God work to change the atmosphere present on many of our campuses today. Here is a list of ideas that I have come across in my reading that we might encourage campus and community leaders (many of whom are my parishioners) to consider: Alcohol and Drug Abuse Related: - Promote more alcohol-free events on campus and in the surrounding community - Implement guidelines to curtail the drinking culture that surrounds many college sporting events
- Strengthen the penalities for buying or serving alcohol to underaged students
- Raise academic expectations through absentee policies (three cut maximum, for example)
- Schedule core classes on Fridays (and possibly Saturdays)