All That and Billy Graham Too

By Richard N. Ostling

At Wheaton College, a rare blend of brainpower and piety

As school reopened last week, Dormitory Counselor Philip Lance had only one problem: "There's some guy at the end of the floor who I think is chewing tobacco." Lance will just talk with the misguided fellow this time, but if the chewing persists he could face expulsion. By modern campus standards, it is a quaint worry, but Illinois' Wheaton College is unabashed in preserving a Garden of Eden moralism that has long since vanished from most campuses. Wheaton ground rules: no cheating, no racial prejudice, no tobacco, no alcohol, no drugs, no gambling--and no social dancing either. Students must sign a "pledge" card on the rules. Bible classes are mandatory, as is weekday worship, with assigned seats so monitors can check attendance.

Wheaton might seem to be just one step up from a stereotypical Bible college, long on piety and short on brains. Not so. Even outside the Evangelical subculture, the college, which has 2,025 undergraduates, is recognized for its academic stature. Last year it enrolled 53 National Merit Scholars, a total that put Wheaton on a par with the best four-year colleges of comparable size and, it boasts, in the top tenth of all U.S. colleges and universities. The National Research Council reports that for the period from 1920 to 1976, Wheaton alumni ranked eleventh among all four-year colleges in earning Ph.D. degrees, edging out Williams.

Graduates include droves of key church leaders who exert considerable influence within the growing Evangelical movement. The most famous, the Rev. Billy Graham (who earned an A.B. in anhropology in 1943), was back on campus last week to dedicate the $13.5 million Billy Graham Center. The center includes an auditorium as well as a museum, classrooms and a research library. Wheaton also numbers more than a dozen college presidents among its alumni, and people in every other line of work--even David Young, '61, one of the White House plumbers along with Egil Krogh, and a bit player in Watergate.

Back in Young's day the student code forbade even movies and the theater. TV made that untenable. Students are now advised to use "discretion" in entertainment. These strictures stir little student resistance; most Wheaton students come from families with similar behavior patterns. Says Deb Diller, 18, a pretty freshman from Pandora, Ohio: "The only thing I'm not allowed to do here that I do at home is dance. If I want to dance, I can dance in the summertime."

Wheaton's rules are more troublesome in recruiting faculty. Beyond personal behavior, Wheaton teachers must sign a 1926 credo including the belief that the Bible is "verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing " A clause insisting on Creationism and a literal Adam and Eve was added in the 1960s. Says Biology Chairman A.J. Smith: "We study Darwin's theory, but that doesn't mean we advocate it." President Hudson T. Armerding notes that the rules and pledges sometimes make it hard to hire sociology teachers.

Wheaton, though short of Ph.D.s in some departments, is strong on dedicated teaching. The college excels in math and science. Among the faculty stars is Physicist Howard H. Claassen, part of the three-man team that synthesized a new chemical compound, xenon tetrafluoride, from an inert element. Other points of pride: study tours abroad (one aimed at combatting hunger) and a collection on the work of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy L. Sayers and other Christian writers.

Though Wheaton draws from all Christian denominations--and gets no church subsidy--it does well enough in giving ($7.3 million last year) to pay higher salaries than the average church-related college. Long-range money problems loom, of course. And beyond them is the specter of the Supreme Court and the U.S. Government.

Armerding fears some future court battle over the school's forthright policy of religious discrimination, since Wheaton consistently excludes atheists, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and, indeed, any non-Christian teachers or students. So far the college has escaped Washington's wrath because it gets no federal or state aid for either capital or operating costs. But its students receive $4 million a year in Government grants, loans and loan guarantees. Since two-thirds of Wheaton's revenues are from tuition and fees, "it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace" such student aid, says Admissions Director Stuart Michael. Worse, the Government might one day strip the college of tax-exempt status. If Wheaton were forced to change its admission policies, its defenders argue, it would no longer be Wheaton--whose motto since 1860 has been Eius Christo et Regno: For Christ and His Kingdom.

--By Richard N. Ostling.

Reported by Steven Holmes/Chicago

With reporting by Steven Holmes/Chicago

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