College is supposed to be a time when parental restrictions evaporate, when the new adult can sample the freedom of independent thought. To some students, that means getting drunk.
At Trinity International University at Illinois Highway 22 and Interstate Highway 94, however, such disrespect for God’s temple can get you expelled, though probably not on the first offense.
Students pledge, as they apply to Trinity, that they will not drink, use drugs or even smoke while students there-not even on their free time, not even when they go home for vacation.
For Trinity, these restrictions on a student’s license to party are nothing new. The former Trinity College, which officially became Trinity International University on Jan. 1, derives its policies from a nearly 90-year association with the Evangelical Free Church of America, a conservative denomination born of Scandinavian immigrants.
Trinity International must be doing something right. Undergraduate enrollment has grown by almost 15 percent in the last year alone, to the point where further expansion is restricted by lack of student housing at the school, technically in Bannockburn but bearing a Deerfield address.
More than 20 percent of the student body is now made up of minorities. And since 1988, the campus population has increased by 62 percent to an all-time high of about 1,000. But those increases must be seen from the proper perspective to be appreciated.
Trinity almost closed its doors 10 years ago. Enrollment declined to fewer than 300 students, and red ink overflowed, primarily as a result of a decision to sever ties with the Evangelical Free Church in the early 1970s and strike out as an independent college. Luckily for the school, its sister institution, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, also located on the Bannockburn campus, agreed to bail it out financially in 1984, when the liberal-arts school again became affiliated with the church.
Today, Trinity is in a growth mode and in 1993 acquired Miami Christian College, now Trinity College at Miami, which at the time was having financial difficulty. Trinity President Kenneth M. Meyer said the Miami location is the largest center of Christian education in south Florida, with enrollment of 400. Along with the college, Trinity acquired the school’s radio station, which generates a total of $1 million in revenue annually.
Back up north, the divinity school is one of the largest seminaries in the world, with 1,400 students from 44 states and 39 foreign countries. The liberal-arts college and the divinity school make up the new Trinity International University, sharing their administration.
As a university, Trinity may be on its way to an unprecedented bout of prosperity, especially if it is able to attract even more of the corporate donors now fueling its $5 million building boom. Among building projects on the campus are the expansion of academic buildings and the dining hall, conversion of the undergraduate library to a student center, expanding the divinity school library to accommodate both schools and making the athletic center larger.
James Ellor, associate professor of human services and gerontology at National-Louis University in Wheaton, said, “Trinity’s reputation in the community is quite high. Where you hear a downside is where people disagree with the theology taught there. Unlike traditional fundamentalists, however, they are quite open to minority participation.”
Throughout most of its history, since its founding in 1897, Trinity has been hanging on by its fingernails, repeatedly averting disaster. According to a history of the college written in 1983, even its beginnings were exceedingly humble: “an offshoot of short-term Bible study courses (some as short as two weeks) that prepared evangelical missionaries for their work as pastors.”
In the late 19th Century, all classes were conducted in Swedish or Norwegian, and for a time Trinity was housed on the campus of Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute. Eventually, Trinity acquired its own home in a Victorian mansion on the North Side of Chicago.
Another mansion, this one in Bannockburn, would become home to Trinity in 1961. In a stroke of luck, the college was able to acquire the home and extensive grounds of the Welch family, owners of the Welch Scientific Co., for only $140,000.
That property, of which the campus now occupies only a portion, will one day house a retirement home and high school, in addition to an expanded university campus, if Meyer has his way.
But despite the ambitious plans, Meyer is glad the school has stuck to its traditional principles, even when enrollment dropped precipitously in the anything-goes 1970s.
“We’ve been ahead of our time for a long time,” Meyer said. “In the past few years, (our rules have) actually been a plus for us in enrollments.”
Trinity’s “community standards” also strictly limit opportunities for other types of collegiate experimentation.
Visitors will look in vain for co-ed dorms, so popular on the nation’s campuses since the 1970s. Indeed, students may have guests of the opposite sex in their rooms only on weekends and only with the door open at least 2 inches. One light must be on at all times.
While it would be expected that parents would adore the place, so do many of its 1,000 or so liberal-arts students.
“Trinity teaches discipline and structure to a lot of people,” said student Frank Phee, 25, a senior in Trinity’s human performance and wellness program. But Phee, an older student who grew up in Chicago’s inner city, acknowledged that he had “huge problems” at first in adjusting to the school’s lifestyle restrictions.
Other students simply appreciate the chance to avoid learning things the hard way. Junior Cody Kargus, 25, of Appleton, Wis., figures that if the dorms were co-ed, “my homework would probably be a lot lower priority.”
Dishonesty, pornography, gossip, abortion and homosexual behavior, among other things, are also prohibited. But students may wear anything they choose to class, as long as it’s “modest.” Earrings are seen on many male ears, form-hugging jeans on many a female figure.
Faculty members must agree to lifestyle restrictions, too, as well as sign a “Statement of Faith,” agreeing to 12 evangelical beliefs, including the literal truth of the Bible, the necessity to be born again in the Holy Spirit, the imminence of the Second Coming and the bodily resurrection of the dead.
It is important that faculty “walk the walk and talk the talk,” said Dave Seils, athletic director, because the school’s fundamental mission is to integrate faith with learning.
In nearly every class, in fact, some aspect of Christian teachings, the Bible or questions of faith are raised by faculty or students. More excited discussion among smiling students about the application of “God’s word” can be heard while passing in the halls, dining areas and dormitories.
Is this any way to run a school that purports to offer a “solid liberal-arts education”?
Meyer believes that the education offered at Trinity is at least as rigorous as at many larger universities. “Just because you’re a Christian doesn’t mean you have to leave your brains by the side of the road,” he said.
More to the point, Trinity faculty members believe they are offering an education that is actually superior to that found in secular programs.
“In much of `objective’ higher education, beliefs are necessarily removed from the discussion,” noted Steven Pointer, professor of history. “In a sense, we are fairer. We recognize what our assumptions are and explicitly discuss how our faith impacts our understanding of the world.”
Evangelical Christians of all stripes may simply be more comfortable than anyone else at Trinity. (A slight majority of undergrads are actually Baptists.)
Chapel attendance is mandatory, at least 32 times per semester; services include songs of praise and a Bible lesson or Christian speaker.
At chapel, student IDs must be swiped through a reader to register attendance. Monitors discourage leaving early. “Not everyone is excited about chapel attendance,” acknowledged Mel Svendsen, senior vice president for student life. Unexcused absences not made up could result in denial of graduation.
Undergraduates also must take nine hours of basic biblical-studies classes, but most core courses are the familiar natural science, social science and humanities courses that face any liberal-arts college student.
Majors include everything from youth ministry and education to pre-med and sports medicine.
Four years of applying Christian faith to everything you study tends to develop graduates prepared for any test of faith thrown at them by the outside world.
“A lot of people, especially attorneys, struggle with morals and ethics,” noted alum and Trinity trustee Peter Etienne, an attorney with Baxter Healthcare in Deerfield. “With a Christian underpinning, such choices are quite easy.”
Trinity’s Christian service requirements give students an opportunity to test their faith in the outside world while still in school. Full-time students must participate in at least three service projects before graduation. These can include helping out at a local church, tutoring inner-city children, putting on chapel services at O’Hare International Airport or serving in a pro-life crisis-pregnancy center.
“The kids like the feeling that they’re doing something rather than just feeling bad because nobody can do enough (to solve the problems of the poor),” Svendsen said of the Student Life office. “It really gives hope to the people on site, and the kids find out they can make a difference.”
Another campus group hoping to make a difference are the coaches and assistant coaches of Trinity’s football team, organized in 1988 by former Chicago Bear Leslie Frazier.
After suffering a career-ending injury during the Super Bowl in January 1986, Frazier assumed he would go into business. Instead, he got a call from Meyer, asking him to start a football program at Trinity.
“I never wanted to coach, but after Dr. Meyer called, I felt God was calling me,” Frazier said.
He began recruiting students, many non-practicing Christians from Chicago’s inner city, to join his team. Adjustment to south Lake County and the rigors of Trinity proved difficult for many, and he had a dropout rate of nearly 40 percent in the first three years. Losing seasons didn’t help. But Frazier believed in what he was doing: helping good kids to get the education and support they might not get at a larger school.
“I know the temptations out there-alcohol, drugs and whatever,” he said. “I felt I could reach kids who were hurting, even those not from a Christian background. Winning is a priority, but not my top priority.”
Even so, the Trinity Trojans won the Mid-States Football Conference of local Christian colleges this year, their first year in the league.
In the meantime, Trinity will continue to search for well-rounded students who can happily conform to its vision of what student life should be. They don’t even have to be born again or even Christian.
Trinity has at least one Hindu and one Muslim currently in attendance. But students must be willing to search for answers from above.
As Timothy Robinson tells his life planning class each semester, “God is woven into the pattern of our tapestry.”
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Tuition is $428 per credit hour for students taking 11 hours or fewer; $214 per hour for those taking 18 or more. The charge is $5,135 per semester for those taking 12 to 17 hours.
