By Kimberly Scharfenberger | February 23, 2016
A new Cardinal Newman Society report released this week on visitation policies at residential Catholic colleges in the U.S. found that only nine out of 192 colleges prohibit opposite-sex visitation between students in dorm buildings on the weekends, and only 11 colleges have such a policy for weekday nights. These visitation policies are considered a crucial component of the institutions’ Catholic identities, according to representatives from three of the colleges, by strengthening the college community and fostering mutual respect among students.
“These colleges demonstrate that a culture that promotes chastity can be achieved with appropriate dorm policies as well as educational efforts,” wrote Adam Wilson, author of the report and managing editor of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College, in Crisis Magazine on Tuesday.
At Aquinas College (Tenn.), Christendom College, Divine Word College, Holy Apostles College and Seminary, John Paul the Great Catholic University, Northeast Catholic College, Thomas Aquinas College, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and Wyoming Catholic College, students of the opposite sex are not allowed in dorms on the weekends. These nine colleges, along with Franciscan University of Steubenville and Ave Maria University, also prohibit weekday night opposite-sex visitation.
With the exception of Divine Word College, all of these institutions are recommended in The Newman Guide.
Wilson noted that although a third of Catholic colleges stipulate that premarital sex is prohibited on campus, few take concrete measures to ensure that students are not given access to situations where premarital sex can occur, such as the dorm rooms of the opposite sex.
“A residential policy that prevents fornication, and situations that can readily lead to fornication, is consistent with, and even required by, a Catholic school,” Chris Decaen, assistant dean for student affairs at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) in Santa Paula, Calif., told the Newman Society.
At TAC, dorms are separated by sex and inter-visitation — visitation by members of the opposite sex — is not allowed. Prospective students are informed of TAC’s residential policies through the College’s application process, which requires applicants to “write an essay about their understanding of our rules of residency and their rationale, and their willingness to comply with them.” This establishes respect for the College’s community rules from the outset. Decaen noted that the rule prohibiting inter-visitation is almost never violated, in part because violation usually results in dismissal from the College.
“We don’t think of chastity in isolation, but rather in terms of our larger mission and purpose,” said Dr. George Harne, president of Northeast Catholic College (NCC) in Warner, N.H. “As an institution we are charged with assisting the young people entrusted to us as they progress on their journey to a vibrant and faithful Catholic adulthood. With this goal in mind, it makes perfect sense to create a culture of chastity and virtue that is conducive to human flourishing and communion with God.”
NCC also alerts prospective students to its visitation policies before they enroll, and Harne shared that students ultimately benefit from the policies, as they are “rooted in a Catholic anthropology and have been tested, refined and shown to be successful over time.” The College’s policies “enable students to grow toward human flourishing that is nourished by faith,” said Harne.
Students at NCC also live in single-sex residences. “There are plenty of other spaces on campus where men and women can interact socially and we encourage a healthy courtship atmosphere based on mutual respect” while also calling students to “comport themselves in ways that affirm their dignity and the dignity of others,” Harne shared. Additionally, NCC is a dry campus, and Harne noted that “alcohol often plays a role in unhealthy relationships and the hookup culture.”
“Such elements on a college campus create a safer environment because it encourages students to look out for one another, to intercede on one another’s behalf and to treat everyone with dignity and respect,” Harne pointed out.
The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (TMC) in Merrimack, N.H., similarly employs “a simple exposition of Catholic ethical and moral norms in collegiate life” by expecting all students “to observe the standards of Catholic ladies and gentlemen, and trust that over their four years they will find this expectation to be fulfilling,” said Dr. William Fahey, president of TMC.
“Our residence life policies strike visitors as an immediate testimony to our College’s earnest approach to living a Catholic life,” said Fahey.
TMC takes a “structured approach to residence life,” which “has as its aim supporting the academic rigor of the College’s course of studies, fostering friendships between the students and forming each student according to the dignified anthropology of the Catholic Church and the virtue ethics of Aristotle and St. Thomas.” TMC employs a curfew for students and inter-visitation is strictly prohibited, with infractions resulting in campus restrictions, work duty assignments and eventually disciplinary hearings and possible suspension or expulsion. The College is also a dry campus, with the exception of beer and wine at special events monitored by College staff.
Fahey shared that students “regularly express gratitude that there is a rhythm and order to the day framed by single-sex dormitories and policies like curfew,” and in a student survey, “over 90 percent of the students agreed with the residential policies, finding them clear and fairly administered.”
“Rules on chastity are not restrictions against individual self-expression, but a guide to human flourishing,” Fahey told the Newman Society.
Leading By Example
For these institutions, merely prohibiting inter-visitation or employing single-sex residences is not enough in adequately nourishing a chaste campus culture. Representatives also stressed the importance of providing students with responsible examples in the college community upon which to model their behavior and interactions. At TMC, for example, “students are regular guests at the homes of faculty” and married faculty and their families are often present at Mass and at meals. This gives students “a visible witness to the proper end of sexual expression, marital union and family life,” said Fahey.
At NCC, “regular discussions around the importance of chastity, modesty and human dignity” are provided through the Sodality of Mary and Confraternity of St. Joseph, the College’s campus men and women’s groups.
Responsible Residential Policies Lower Sexual Assault Risks
In addition to encouraging healthy campus cultures and fostering positive relationships among students, the college representatives agreed that their residential policies also play a role in creating a safer campus culture by reducing the risk of sexual assault.
“Do the math,” said Decaen. “You need to prevent the scenario where it easily happens to prevent sexual assault. If you refuse the best means, you’re not sincere about wanting the end.”
“Making rules against sexual assault will make little difference when there are no rules against premarital sex to begin with,” Decaen continued. “Rules against premarital sex make little difference when the rules of residency do not themselves discourage situations in which premarital sex can easily occur.”
“Modern schools are in even worse shape,” said Decaen, “because they want to encourage and even celebrate non-marital sexual ‘expression.’”
“Residential policies promoting chastity decrease the occasion where sexual assault might take place unnoticed and reduce exposure to correlating factors of sexual assault, such as substance abuse,” Harne agreed. “Having a dry campus and maintaining the integrity of our single-sex residences remove the primary causes of assault on other campuses.”
“If one looks at the mandatory reporting of crimes at colleges with highly-structured residence life policies — institutions that are also the ones speaking positively about chastity and trying accurately to present the Catholic teaching on sexual ethics — I think you will see statistically lower or even non-existing incidents of sexual assault,” Fahey noted. “Clearly and empirically, these policies work.”
“Catholic living — including the practice of chastity — is the path to happiness,” said Fahey. “Given that attitude, the impact of good policies is to make it easier to witness to all aspects of our Faith, not simply the virtue of chastity.”
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Originally published by Catholic Education Daily, an online publication of The Cardinal Newman Society. Founded in 1993, the mission of The Cardinal Newman Society is to promote and defend faithful Catholic education. The Society is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, nonprofit organization supported by individuals, businesses and foundations.