First dance at Wheaton College

Here is an interesting story in today's National Post: "College finally 'footloose': Illinois Christian school: Students to hold first dance after lifting of 143-year ban." A quick google search reveals that this seemingly mundane story is being carried all over North America.

I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois. Although I myself never had any connections with the local college, I've known any number of people who have, including my wife, who is an alumna and taught there for six years. Although Wheaton College has an excellent faculty and can afford to be selective in accepting students, it has developed a reputation over the decades for its rather stringent lifestyle code, which is grudgingly revised every generation or so by the administration and trustees.

All the same, that this would be national -- no, continental -- news seems a bit ludicrous. Many of its faculty are top-ranked scholars who regularly produce fine work respected by colleagues elsewhere. But the media rarely pick up on this. A notable exception to this neglect is Alan Wolfe's article, "The Opening of the Evangelical Mind," in the October 2000 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.