I went to a small Christian university in Oregon called George Fox. Some discussion on the etiquette board about the BYU basketball player who was suspended due to premarital sex got me thinking about our lifestyle rules and moral code/honor statement. We all had to sign this in order to get into school:
In accordance with Christ-centered convictions honoring the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit, the George Fox University communityexpects its student to follow a lifestyle that excludes gambling, the use or possession of nonmedicinal drugs, alcohol, tobacco,obscene or pornographic articles or literature, and forbids immoral sexual behavior.
We were expected to follow that for the entire time we were enrolled, which meant no drinking even after turning 21, no wine when we were travelling in Europe (even though the French thought us very rude to refuse the bottle they so graciously offered us), and all rules must be followed when on school breaks, summer included.
We also had rules on campus about what was and was not ok. When I first started, R rated movies were not allowed at all, even in the privacy of ones room. Part way through my 4 years that changed; you could watch R rated movies in the privacy of your room with the door shut, but not in common areas. Now they say something about discouraging use of the rating system and give some Christian guidelines for choosing movies. I can't comment on those because I didn't read them.
We had floor hours, so people of the opposite sex were only allowed on dorm floors or in on-campus apartments during certain times. I think during the weekday it was like 5 pm to 10 pm for dorms, and then 2 pm to 11 or midnight for weekends. Apartments and houses had longer hours, presumably because there were fewer people living there and common areas instead of just bedrooms. In the dorms, if there was a boy in your room (or a girl in the boys' dorm) the door had to be open. There were several common areas (dorm lobbies and tv rooms) where you could hang out with the opposite sex all night long.
The RAs liked to claim there was something called the "horizontal rule," though H and I scoured the handbook and couldn't find it. Basically, you couldn't lie down in the presence of the opposite sex. Once, I was lying on my bed and my friend was lying on my roommates. We were watching a movie in my dorm room and got in trouble because we were both lying down. Another time, H and I were in the dorm lobby. H was sitting, I was lying down asleep, and an RA woke me up and told me I had to sit up because it was against the rules. We asked why me sleeping wasn't ok, but the couple on the next couch over could make out and no one said a word. The RA didn't have an answer.
We had chapel every M and W from 10 to 10:50 and were required to attend 21 per semester. There were also special chapels throughout the semester - a movie with a discussion, special Friday chapels, etc. We got chapel credits (officially called Spiritual Formation credits) for small group Bible studies done through the university, too. My Bible study group was together for 3 years :-)
Organized dancing is not allowed on campus unless it's one of the university sanctioned events. We ignored that rule a lot
:-P
Gambling was not allowed. We couldn't even do a raffle as a fundraiser because it was considered gambling. We had to find some awkward way around it. For every $5 people donated to our softball team, they were entered to win a gorgeous quilt. It was ridiculous that we had to word it that way and became obvious that no one really believed that a raffle fundraiser was gambling, but that we had to follow the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it.
We did not always follow the rules. I did drink after I turned 21, even though I wasn't supposed to. When we were in Europe we all went out to a bar one night and that was on a university sponsored trip! We danced all the time, we didn't really care about that rule (and apparently no one else did either since we never got in trouble for it) and we watched rated R movies on campus. I also broke floor hours once or twice but never got caught.
So, what kinds of rules did/does your university have? Do you agree or disagree with them? Do you follow them always?