Photo Illustration | Olivia Blinn/THE CHIMES
Despite the classic Biola mindset of “ring by spring” and the typical goal of the “MR” or “MRS” degree, the shortage of public displays of affection (PDA) present at this school is something to be commended.
Even though there aren’t formal moderators patrolling campus looking for misbehaving twitterpated students, no one seems to be “speaking tongues” out in the open for all their peers to see. I’m proud to be attending a university where we’re all adult enough to recognize that displaying one’s physicality isn’t something to be applauded.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for educational establishments everywhere. Back at my large public high school, public make-out sessions were as common as gum on the sidewalk. Mind you, the ground was covered in gum. I didn’t expect the same environment here at Biola, but I was expecting to catch a glimpse of more outward affection than I do each day.
Seeing as we’re all adults, or soon-to-be adults, this issue could have gone one of two directions on campus. Either the student body would feel the freedom to act out their adult feelings in an “adult fashion,” inhibitions aside, or they would keep it PG and focus more on community and less on their partner’s mouth structure.
I’m pleased to report that Biola has chosen the latter of the two, and that’s showcased every day by the healthy camaraderie of the student body.
It does bring up the question of which authority figures actually moderate PDA. If a couple is excessive, what can be done? Will the classic, “Get a room!” phrase be enough to scare the lovebirds off of each other, or would a different approach be more successful?
I doubt that a couple would ever put on such a display, in the daylight anyway. Biola’s faith-based students usually do well to keep each other accountable and in-check, and it’s a well known fact that PDA is somewhat frowned upon.
Many other universities, however, aren’t so respectable, or Christ-centered.
As a freshman, I’m new to this strong environment of Christ being present everywhere on campus because all the colleges I visited for the past few years weren’t even close to having the same amount of community and faith-driven students.
During my “touring” phase, at a certain unnamed state university, not only were there forgotten whiskey bottles littered around campus during tours, but there were also unashamed couples everywhere outwardly showcasing their affection. Seeing the low quality of campus life wasn’t the best introduction to parents who would have paid generously to send me there, even if the school did have a Quidditch team.
Then again, a university like that has no incentive like Biola to keep publicly seen relationships appropriate. If there is no explicit baseline for morals, then why would the students have any incentive to keep them?
Coming from a place of excessive PDA and looser morals, it’s absolutely refreshing to enter an environment where there’s no pressure or even desire for that kind of behavior.
We — not only as a student body, but as the body of Christ — have a strong system of communication and accountability that makes keeping pure and righteous not only easy, but enjoyable.
