Ethan Trex
By the Handbook: 9 Unusual College Policies
by Ethan Trex - August 19, 2010 - 4:40 PM


When incoming freshmen head to college ready to have some fun before classes start, they often run up against a boring enemy: hours of tedious explanation of various school rules and policies. Yes, these orientation sessions may be a chore to sit through, but it could be so much worse. Your school could have one of these odd policies:

1. Every Day is Business Casual Day

Starting in 2007, Paul Quinn College in Dallas has required students to be dressed in business casual attire from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. if they want to attend classes or eat in the school’s dining halls. While a dress code isn’t all that strange, Paul Quinn’s punishment for breaking it is unique. The first violation results in community service. The second violation earns a student a spot in the President’s Running Club. College president Michael Sorrell shows up at students’ rooms early on Saturday morning and forces violators to go jogging with him. Suddenly wearing a pair of khakis doesn’t sound so bad.

2. No Beard Without a Doctor’s Note


If you’re a male student at Brigham Young, you’re going to need a doctor’s note before you grow a beard. The school’s honor code includes a section on grooming, but if a student has a skin condition that would make shaving painful or impossible, he can get a doctor’s note and qualify for a “beard exception” that’s good for one year. The oddest thing about this rule is that Brigham Young himself often sported a flowing white beard.

3. No Extra Studying (Also: No Booger-Wiping)

Don’t like studying? Then Pensacola Christian College might be for you. According to the Student Voice, an unofficial site run by PCC students, “extra studying during exams” is strictly prohibited. Before you think Pensacola Christian is a slacker’s delight, though, the site also lists the following prohibited items and actions: local calls over 30 minutes, singing too loudly at prayer group, singing in the shower during quiet hours, and, of course, this little gem: “You may not wipe ‘boogers’ on the wall. This is being cracked down on.”

4. No Wikipedia

In 2007, the history department at Middlebury College banned students from citing Wikipedia as a source in papers or exams. Professors in the department grew tired of seeing incorrect information pop up on exams and assignments only to have students say that they got the “facts” from the collaboratively edited online encyclopedia.

While it’s perfectly reasonable for an academic institution to expect its students to get their facts from verified sources – even enthusiastic Wikipedia junkies must admit there are errors on the site – the new policy became national news. The New York Times ran a story on the policy, and some students grumbled that the new rule was tantamount to censorship. Some professors, though, embraced the controversy in an interesting way by turning “Write an accurate Wikipedia entry” into a class assignment.

5. No Occult Practices

There will be no ritualistic killing of goats at Kentucky’s Asbury University. The Christian liberal arts college has fairly strict policies about the usual suspects for religious schools: drinking, swearing, gossip, etc. However, its student handbook also explicitly forbids “occult practices.” At least students won’t be able to get ideas for occult practices from watching horror movies; campus policy bans R-rated movies as well.

6. No Jazz

Something’s telling us the band at Bob Jones University isn’t packed with improvisational jazz talent. The religious South Carolina school bans jazz, rap, rock, and country music “as well as religious music that borrows from these styles.” If you thought Asbury’s policy on R-rated movies was tough, check out this passage for Bob Jones’ residence hall policies: “Residence hall students may not watch videos above a G rating when visiting homes in town and may not attend movie theaters.”

Don’t think you can’t have any fun at Bob Jones University, though. You can still bring your handgun! The school promotes responsible firearm ownership, though. From the same residence hall policy page: “All weapons brought to campus must be turned in for storage. Trigger locks are required for pistols.”

7. No Democrats

In 2009, students at conservative Christian Liberty University formed a chapter of the College Democrats and even briefly earned recognition as a legitimate campus group. When higher administrators caught wind of the organization, though, they quickly moved to ban the College Democrats from campus because the party “supports abortion, socialism and the agenda of gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

8. No Beer Pong

You’re allowed to drink at Pitzer College, but you’d better not turn that boozing into a competitive event. The school’s paper, The Claremont Port Side, reported last weekend that the administration has banned drinking games for the upcoming academic year. According to the story, the student handbook contains a passage that reads, “Games that are centered on alcohol, focus on drinking large quantities of alcohol or promote irresponsible drinking are prohibited. Any devices or paraphernalia which aid in these games may be confiscated and will not be returned. These devices include, but are not limited to beer pong or ‘Beirut’ tables and beer bongs or funnels.”

Sounds like a reasonable policy that would be tricky to enforce. At what point does ownership of Solo cups or a Ping-Pong table start to exhibit the intent to play Beirut?

9. No Dogs

Since 1922 Lafayette has banned dogs from its classes. On April 7, 1922, The New York Times contained a brief item that reported that Lafayette students were no longer allowed to bring their pooches to class or chapel exercises. The final sentence of the story simply read, “Dogs have always been permitted in classes, but of late their presence has caused much annoyance.”

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Comments (62)
  1. Maybe it’s a matter of personal taste, but it just floors me that people want to attend some of these colleges. Wow.

  2. I went to a college where we couldn’t walk on most of the grass on campus. There were a few areas we could partake of but never the main quad. They have apparently either relaxed or removed that rule and now main quad looks terrible. When I was there it was nice and pretty and green. I guess they were right.

    We also had a “four on the floor, shoe in the door” rule when we had a boy in our room during intervis.

  3. I agree, Kevin. Why pay so much money for the privilege of being told how to live?

  4. My goodness….only G rated movies. Not even most children’s movies these days go below a PG rating. Hmmm…but Jaws IS rated G. Loophole? Perhaps…

  5. Liberty University also prohibits their students from attending rated R movies. They post two or three RAs at the $2.50 cinema near the university grounds to look for students they know from campus who might be violating the policy.

    That being said, when I lived there I knew a cohabitating couple in the apartment complex next to me who both attended Liberty.

  6. Also, I should note that Liberty *did* make an exception for “The Passion of the Christ.”

  7. I’m from Pensacola so I know about #3 on this list, but they also have another rule “You may not allow the end of your belt to hang down from the belt-loops resembling a phallus.”

    p.s. They also do not allow you to surf the internet.

    For more of their crazy rules: http://www.pensacolachristiancollege.com/rules.htm

    Luckily I’m not attending their college.

  8. I’m a journalism grad student, and a couple years ago I cited Wikipedia in a paper to see what would happen. I did it because the J faculty here crow on and on about new media, Internet, blogging, etc, and wanted to see if one was willing to accept the citation. Of course she took issue with it. Figures. They still try to fool these poor undergrad kids into thinking they can get a job at a newspaper after they graduate…

  9. How can a college limit what kinds of movies their students watch while not on school grounds? That’s ridiculous.

  10. Not really sure why no WIkipedia is on here. I attended two separate colleges where this was a pretty standard policy in most classes.

  11. re Bob Jones:

    Not all “sinful music” comes from jazz, rap, rock and country music. Many of the tunes for hymns that are centuries old were “borrowed” from English drinking songs, the most egregious: “Revive Us Again.” It insults me as a Christian that any MUSIC could be considered unfit for anyone to listen to. Now, certain lyrics offend me, so I don’t listen to it, but music? They’re crazy. (They also didn’t allow black students to enroll until 1971, so they’re sooo progressive and Biblical)!

  12. WOW. I just went and looked at the website that Austin linked to, and… WOW. Those people are INSANE. I have close friends who attended PCC (they met and married while they were there), and now I understand why they act the way they do.

    I go to a Christian college that’s fairly conservative in some ways, but the “rules” are basically guidelines asking us to please be responsible, considerate, faithful adults, and behave accordingly.

  13. Some of these don’t really surprise me. No Wikipedia is standard in all of the classes I’ve taken so far, no dogs in class make sense (unless it’s a Seeing Eye, in which case maybe find a dog-sitter for the period?), and -insert joke about Christians hating intellectuals- (actually that makes no sense whatsoever. What constitutes “extra”, and why is extra bad?). But no Democrats? Really? If I founded a university that held a policy of “no Republicans”, I’d get a shit-storm of backlash!

  14. If a student is writing a research paper, he or she should not cite Wikipedia. It is not a research site. It is a user-edited site. Wikipedia is good for a jumping off point. A student can get some basic information, then do his or her own research. For many Wiki articles, sources are cited. A student could go directly to the source. Copying someone else’s interpretation of research, an opinion, or a “cliff’s notes” version of a research article is not college-level work. (does anyone know what cliff’s notes are anymore?)

    I began advocating for this at my son’s school in the 6th grade when he was required to do a small science research paper. Some of the parents during the 6th grade orientation did not understand why this would be an issue. I explained I had just completed graduate school, which included far-too-many research papers. My point to the parents and teachers was that it is never too early to teach a child to do things the “right” way. Far too often, teachers and parents let a child do things the easy or convenient way.

  15. My college banned not only beer pong but any drinking games were considered a secondary offense on top of drinking.

  16. I agree with the others that the Wikipedia thing isn’t too out of the ordinary– I was a history major and I couldn’t use it either. I am also a teacher and I ban Wikipedia in my classroom (and Yahoo Answers– students are using that way too much).

    The beer pong ban isn’t too weird either. My very liberal college banned alcoholic games too, because it encouraged irresponsible drinking. However, we played them anyways. Res life just told us to stop if they caught us.

  17. the “no citing Wikipedia” policy isn’t all that surprising. That’s been standard procedure in every class I’ve taken.

  18. Me and my friend got a whole bunch of our friends together one day to do The Time Warp (from Rocky Horror) in the main hall of our high school. A security gaurd (who knew us so well that we talked to us on a first name basis) came up to us and YELLED, “No synchronized dancing in the hall!!” We would have challenged that rule, but we were too busy falling to the floor with the silent giggles.

  19. I don’t understand… if someone at Bob Jones University is visiting someone in town and they watch a movie that’s above a G rating, how can the rule even be enforced? They’re in a private residence that is off-campus.
    Also- no swearing? *%^$ that!

  20. Perhaps those who choose to attend a private school with rules a majority here dont agree with do so for reasons of their own & don’t concern themselves with what the typical student is doing. They might even snicker at the mass conformity on the average campus. Its why they make chocolate & vanilla.

  21. When i went to Roberts Wesleyan College back in the 90′s students weren’t allowed to drink or smoke… even off campus and even if you were of age…

    We also were banned from all forms of dancing including ballroom…the only exception(for some reason)was Square dancing.

    Students were also not allowed to have sex unless they were married to each other.

    We used to joke that sex was banned because it might lead to dancing :)

  22. Those Pensacola Christian College rules are the most ridiculous rules I have ever read in my life.

    “A swimming suit/shorts may not be worn while traveling to the beach, although there are no changing rooms at the men’s required beach.”

    So, are you just supposed to go swimming in your clothes?

  23. I went to a Baptist college a few years back, and they had a few strict rules. The dorms were broken down into two buildings and were gender specific. On weekdays, the opposite gender could only be in the rooms until the, and the door had to be open. The boy and girl also couldn’t be on the same piece of furniture. Weekends just had extended hours. Our building actually had some lesbians…so loophole. No beer at all. Being caught drunk was pretty much the end. Oh, and no organized dances. Go Baptists!

  24. I went to Pensacola Christian and immediately figured they would make the list. Strange folk to say the least. I broke the rules regularly but the strangest demerits I received were for breaking a plastic communion cup after service.

  25. I go to a “Catholic” school, but there are practically no rules that are enforced. People chew tobacco in class, show up drunk to school-sponsored events, and the inter-visitation rules are super easy to break. It’s like the opposite end of the spectrum; my school needs more rules, these schools need less.

  26. We were never allowed to cite Wikipedia as our source. Any other website but not Wikipedia.

  27. When does it look like maybe the ping pong table is only getting used for beer pong? When you walk out of Walmart having bought ONLY Solo cups, a bag of ping pong balls and a 24 pack of Keystone. Lived in college town, saw it a lot.

  28. Same as the other people, I was never able to cite Wikipedia in class either.

  29. Colleen – That’s because that is the expected behavior from Republicans, so nobody thinks it as wrong.

  30. LU’s ban on the College Democrats was a response to them insisting on holding a rally in support of Roe V Wade. Had the Dem’s not done so, there would have been no controversy. Before you tear apart LU, remember, there are colleges that ban conservative speakers and military recruiters.

  31. I was at a music camp at Pensacola back when I was in high school, and I got reprimanded for not blow drying my hair. Apparently, boys would see my wet hair, and they would know that I took a shower, and I was naked in that shower. So wet hair is very provocative, apparently.

  32. Update to this post:

    LU has removed sponsorship and official recognition of all political clubs on campus. However, the clubs are allowed to continue as “unofficial,” do not receive university funds, and are allowed to use campus facilities. This was in response to the group “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” filing a complaint with the IRS to review LU’s tax-exempt status. Incidentally, LU’s first response to the complaint was to file a complaint with the IRS to review the AUSCS’ tax-exempt status.

  33. Thank you, Charlie. I was going to point out the same thing.

    An academic institution allowing/demanding only ONE side of an argument to be expressed is the height of hypocrisy.

    And I always thought beer bongs built character.

    TBV

  34. Wow, those that haven’t read Austin’s link need too! It puts all the rest to shame.

    Step it up Bob Jones!

    http://www.pensacolachristiancollege.com/rules.htm

  35. @Clevegal42 Gosh, your school actually allowed boys in your dorm!!!???! Man, I wish I’d gone there!

  36. “Brigham Young often sported a white flowing beard.” What the hell does that mean?? Was it removeable? Bad choice of phrasing.

  37. Free thought has no place on a college campus.

  38. I totally agree with the wikipedia limitation. I never trust it anyway for information gathering. This comes from the entry on the gallbladder: which at the time was edited to state that the organ was the source of talent for Acid Rock musical talent.

    If you read Wikinomics, you can see a value to collaboration (but I think only if it controlled and limited to experts in a related field).
    Because when you have an open-edit page for EVERYONE, it only takes one slacker who thinks e-vandalism is fun, it ruins the overall value.

  39. Surely they’ll make exceptions for seeing-eye dogs.

  40. I had a friend who went to Pensacola Christian. The reason for the rule about no extra studying is because they have a strict lights out curfew, and they would find people studying in the bathrooms.

    Those who never considered a truly religious school have absolutely no idea. Check out Austin’s post, and know there are many other schools with similar rules.

  41. It’s funny being a student and suspecting that you’re probably smarter than college administrators. Most of these restrictions show that being smart is not a requirement to run a university. How democrats support “socialism” for instance… uh, that would make them socialists, not democrats. Duh.

  42. Liberty University did not ban the college democrats for the party’s stance on those issues, in fact they did not ban them at all they just withdrew school sponsorship of them. The reason they withdrew sponsorship was because they supported candidates who supported those issues. While that may sound like splitting hairs it really isn’t because the republican club had their sponsorship withdrawn as well for the exact same reason. That being said the school eventually decided to just not sponsor any type of political club on campus. Although the school pulled sponsorship of these clubs they are still allowed to meet on campus the only thing that has really changed for them is that they are not allowed to use the schools name and they dont recieve a club fund of $500 a year.

  43. I graduated from Pensacola Christian a few years ago. Yes, the rules are strict, but most of them have relaxed greatly in the past few years. Also, it should be noted that the Student Voice Web site noted in the article and the site linked above by Austin are mostly run and contributed to by students who dropped out or left under very bitter circumstances, so you only hear the worst possible scenarios or very exaggerated complaints. While some of the rules are silly, most just reflect a moral code that you’d expect from students who choose to attend a religious college.

  44. Wow…and I thought the giant white line in my cousin’s Christian college’s dorm that the opposite could not cross EVER was a crazy rule.

    My boyfriend tours nationally with theatre groups. On one tour, they played a venue on the campus of a conservative univ. in UT. The entire cast and crew had to sign papers saying that they would not swear on the campus. I can understand that policy for students, and asking outside vendors, etc. to merely respect it, but to actually sign away your freedom of speech? I wouldn’t have signed it, I would have respected it and watched my mouth, but not signed it.

    Soooo glad I went to a state school!

  45. A schoolmate of mine went to a college for a day at a Baptist institution, and saw a girl in a PE class injure her ankle. The school made her change into a skirt before she could be taken to the hospital.

    I would hope, as CPete mentions, some of these places are relaxing rules that have no bearing on education or public order.

    And as my favorite high school teacher (a graduate of one of the schools on this list) said, if you can’t stand the rules, then don’t go there! (I didn’t.)

  46. Wait, running with the college president is a PUNISHMENT for violating the dress code? Well sign me up and let me dig out my old heavy metal t-shirts. Or better yet, I’ll show up for class already dressed to run. :)

  47. More great info on Pensacola Christian College can be found on their wikipedia

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensacola_Christian_College

  48. so wait no doors on closets because that can be turned into a beer pong table.

    I went to a school that greatly frowned upon walking on the Green (or Mall), but a new president came in and wanted kids to hang out on the main drag.

  49. I realise these are meant to be extreme examples, but as a non-American, a lot of American college life seems pretty overly-regulated to begin with. The whole idea of the norm being dorm life, no drinking (officially anyway), RAs enforcing rules etc. etc. is just crazy to me. Where I’m from, only a very small majority, often foreign students, would live on-campus, everyone else just gets their own ‘student flats’ (or lives with their parents!) The university has pretty much no control over your life, and there’s generally a ‘sink or swim’ attitude about whether or not you turn up to class etc. I’m sure there’s positives and negatives to both scenarios, and I bet the rules and what actually goes down are often two very different things!

  50. So when my 10 year old nephew told me that he updated some things on Wikipedia, I KNEW righ then that it was not the place to go for reliable information.

  51. i went to school near Liberty and they called my college “the dykes on the hill” because it was a woman’s college. not sure if it was the church followers or the students, but people used to put fliers on people’s cars that said “gays are going to hell.” the students i met that actually went to Liberty were nice seemingly normal people who were forced by their parents to attend LU. They told me they had a curfew, which as an 18 year old seemed preposterous.

  52. It is people like whoever came up with some of the rules for the “Christian” schools on this list that make me sometimes ashamed to tell people I am a Christian. Many of these rules show a complete disregard, or atleast misunderstanding, of the teachings of Christ. No democrats because they support socialism? Have you ever studied the communistic lifestyle of the first century christian?

  53. I went to a Catholic university, but it’s far from being that. A professor friend at my alma mater does not allow any citations from Wiki. It wasn’t a problem for me…the internet didn’t exist when I was in college.
    I would question the college that doesn’t allow dogs…what about service animals? To ban those dogs is an ADA violation big time.

  54. Hey, if you’re curious about Pitzer College banning beer pong (aka Beirut), check out our story: http://www.claremontportside.com/?p=2796

  55. I’m really surprised that the Wikipedia ban is on this list – throughout high school and college it was standard practice that Wikipedia was not a legitimate source for citations. Some professors put it explicitly in the syllabus, but I think it was just assumed.

    Same thing for beer pong – my college didn’t allow drinking games because they encouraged binge drinking. I don’t think there was much of a punishment though, and the rest of the alcohol policy was very lenient. (Students could drink openly as long as they acted responsibly.)

  56. Pensacola Christian College’s rules sound positively Orwellian (as is the very name “Liberty” College!), and it seems like the kind of place you’d *want* to get thrown out of (and don’t get me started about “Christians”). Then again, as one poster here mentioned, the rules are listed on an “unofficial” school site.

    re. Wikipedia: My understanding is the ban on Wikipedia as a primary reference is fairly universal. It’s part of the ongoing struggle academia has always had with technology. Back in the Stone Age when I was in college, many professors had a ban on handing in papers printed on dot matrix printers! For you kids who are wondering what the heck a dot matrix printer is, go here (but don’t cite it!!!): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printer

  57. My university did not ban Wikipedia, I found a paper of mine recently and am asheamed to admit there were excessive Wikipedia citations. To my credit we had a truly crappy library and physical sources were often hard to come up with. I was doing a research paper on Sally Hemmings and all of the references I could find to her relationship with TJ were before DNA tests proved there was a relationship. BTW I graduated from college in 06.

  58. To Bob Jones U. – Once upon a time, the Church banned musicians from writing down any secular music (hence, we have mostly religious music from the middle ages). To be able to record such music, composers set the secular tunes to church hymns, Masses, and other such things. Kinda like how the song “Greensleeves” is actually about a prostitute but someone turned it into a Christmas song. Just sayin’…

  59. The no Wikipedia rule is not that suprising. It was the same at my College. I got a one time exception the only time I used it as a reference, as long as I promised never to use it again.

  60. Surely the no drinking game rule isnt that uncommon. My uni in Canada had the same rule, we all still did, just had to hide it whenever security knocked on the door. We also had a great res fellow – he would come and warn us all when security were on their way!

    Also, the no wikipedia one is standard as well. Pretty simple though, i usually just use the references theyve cited at the bottom and pretend i got them from there

  61. I just read some of the PCC rules. How many people own their own key duplicating machines? I mean seriously.

  62. The difference between socialism and the “communistic lifestyle” of early Christians is that they participated on a VOLUNTARY basis whereas socialistic governments FORCE their constituents to participate whether they want to or not via taxation and redistribution of wealth.

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