New Community Covenant replaces R.O.M.

Posted by admin on Sep 22, 2009 in Back Issues, News, Volume 14 Issue 1 | 0 comments

On Sept. 3, the TWU Administration officially announced the launch of the Community Covenant Agreement (CCA), a document set to replace the 34-year-old Responsibilities of Membership (ROM).

“The day has come where we are officially launching the community covenant for TWU,” announced Sheldon Loeppky, Associate Provost for Student Life to all of the students whom in attendance at SLO-Week the week prior to classes beginning.

The move to the CCA represents a shift towards a more contemporary vision of TWU’s identity, community values and intended outcomes. According to Student Life, the CCA accomplishes this in a “more affirming way by providing students, staff, faculty and affiliate members with clear expectations.” Included in these new expectations are also new freedoms, the most notable being Trinity’s new stance on alcohol consumption.

“The ROM was authored in 1975. Some things have changed since then. As of yesterday [TWU President] Raymond emailed the entire campus community to announce the CCA being in full effect for all students and faculty,” said Loeppky in his address to SLO-Week attendees.

The process towards a new set of principles to govern TWU began in the fall of 2007 when 70 percent of students expressed the desire to have the ROM’s prohibition of alcohol consumption removed. It was at this time that President Raymond approached TWUSA and indicated that he would like to have the ROM reviewed and revised. The ROM had been authored in 1975 and the understanding was that it was time to update it to align itself with TWU’s more contemporary values.

Over the summer of 2008 research began and a series of guiding documents were collected. Then in September 2008, a Community Covenant Editing Committee (CCEC) was established. The CCEC consisted of two undergraduate faculty members, one graduate faculty member, two undergraduate students, one graduate student, two representatives from Student Life and a member of the Provost Office. Sitting on the committee for undergraduate students were third-years (now fourth) Jason Brandl and Amanda Devries, both TWUSA members.

After weekly meetings for almost four months, the CCEC presented a draft copy of the Community Covenant Agreement to internal and external stakeholders for awareness and feedback. Many suggestions were considered and integrated into the final document prior to legal review and University Policy Council’s final approval.

One concern the CCEC dealt with was whether a new stance on alcohol would lead to a greater level of alcohol consumption amongst students. The CCEC consulted other schools that have moved away from prohibition stances to gain insight into Trinity’s own situation. According to Loeppkey “other universities that made similar decisions did not see much change in the behaviour of students. What they did experience was a greater level of openness.”

In addition to drafting a set of principles that would better reflect students and faculty’s stance on alcohol and other issues, the committee also wished to help maintain the evangelical principles that TWU were founded on.

“We wanted to respect and uphold the boundaries of an evangelical worldview to create a document that creates a certain kind of ecology,” said Tim McCarthy, whom also served on the committee. “We did not want to take a survey and write a document out of a survey. We studied scripture and Christian principles in addition to many other factors. Once we had something that we felt would be uself, it went to the President and he put it out there basically as is,” said McCarthy of the committees’ actions.

So what does the CCA practically look like? Under the CCA students must still voluntarily abstain from drunkenness and under-age consumption of alcohol. As well’ students will not be allowed to use or possess alcohol or tobacco on campus or at any TWU-sponsored event. Possession of alcohol on campus could potentially be processed through student accountability whereas possession of cigarettes or tobacco will not be processed in that manner.

TWU itself will not be supplying alcohol at events, and problems will arise if a student arrives at events intoxicated and inappropriate behaviour results accordingly.

Naturally, determining factors of intoxication can be confusing. In Kelvin Gartley’s FAQ distributed during SLO-Week, he articulates observable effects of impairment as ranging from slurred speech and poor coordination to trouble walking and nausea. A blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 is the legal limit for driving but impairment is presumed 0.05.

President Raymond elaborated on the cause of the new changes and what he hoped they would envision. “All universities in contrast to health have toxicity. We’re chartered by the Province of BC as a Christian university. We are a particular university that goes beyond competence that brings out the best of all students and optimizing student success in all aspects of life, including socially, spiritually, and intellectually. We are basing our principles for having an ecology that will help foster this on Jesus Christ. We’re interested in whole person development.”