University president to students who feel victimized: 'This is not a day care'

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published 30 November 2015

One university president recently sent a strong message to students who raise concerns over campus activities, including lectures and sermons, that make them feel uncomfortable: "This is not a day care," wrote Everett Piper, the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University, in a blog post spotted by Inside Higher Ed Monday. "This is a university!"

In the midst of debates over campus protests and trigger warnings, Piper wrote of a student who he said recently spoke to him about a university chapel sermon that made him feel bad for not showing love. Here's the president's response to him, and to other students who may feel similarly:

If you want the chaplain to tell you you're a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you're looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.If you're more interested in playing the "hater" card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don't want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn't one of them. [Oklahoma Wesleyan University]

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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.