My Brother Got Shipped From PCC
My brother Andy got "shipped" from Pensacola Christian College. This is the term PCC students use for expulsion. Before I knew the details, I expected he just accumulated too many demerits for tiny infractions. I certainly accumulated a lot of them when I was there. For instance, having a clean room and your bed made when the floor-leader comes in to check in the morning. (The floor leader is a student whose job is to supervise the students on his or her hall.) I typically would get 5 demerits for not emptying my trash during morning check; another five for hair too long when they lined us up against the wall once a month for the dorm supervisor to inspect us; another five for being late to a class; another five for being caught out of bed or with a light on after 11 PM. More rules are listed here and here, but there are countless unwritten ones.
There are stages to the penalties. For 75 demerits in a semester, you get "campused." It means you can't leave campus for two weeks, and you're not allowed to speak to any other campused student during that period.
If you get 150 demerits in a semester, you are "shadowed", which means a floor leader is assigned to follow you everywhere and make sure you don't speak to any student, while they go through the process of expelling you. The term "shipped" is used for being expelled. Shipped students sometimes report gestapo-like intimidation tactics pressuring them into signing a lot of damaging paperwork without consulting a lawyer. A shipped student is abruptly dumped on the next flight home with a suitcase, and the rest of their belongings are literally shipped after them. Expelled students always have to sit out the rest of the semester and the one following, but after that, re-applications are considered on a case-by-case basis.
He got shipped for the dumbest thing. This requires some setup to explain. There is a men's sports field and a women's sports field. But the thing is, the men's sports field is on the other side of a little 2-lane road, Rawson Lane. My brother's friend Jeremy was playing sports on the Men's field and his girlfriend wanted to watch the game. Andy drove her there in his car. The road goes through school property but is defined as not on campus. When they drove across the road, they were for a moment "off campus" before they got back "on campus" on the other side of the road. Women are not supposed to go to the Men's Field at all except during a chaperoned sports event (and not all are chaperoned). Being with a student of the opposite sex off campus is always automatic expulsion.
That site is nearby where Rachel and I got "socialed" for talking on her way to work past my dorm when we were students there; but we were inside the fence, so we weren't expelled. Security caught us on the surveillance cameras. Speaking to a member of the opposite sex in an area without a chaperone results in being "socialed": we were not allowed to speak to any students of the opposite sex for two weeks.
Since you all share my opinion that my alma mater Pensacola Christian College (home of the famous "making eye babies" and "optical intercourse") is creepy and demented, I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that I'm glad my brother is out of there, hopefully this time forever. He might be upset at the loss of all the money he's given the college, but it was wasted money for an unaccredited pre-med degree. I'll encourage him to apply to Macomb Community College or Oakland University.
Comments
dbvanhorn on Dec. 6, 2006 9:25 PM
I didn't share that opinion till I read this!
Do they have any time left over after surveilance duties to actually teach any classes? This place sounds only a couple steps removed from "Flag" in clearwater florida.
Yikes.
matt-arnold on Dec. 6, 2006 9:42 PM
You must be referring to the Scientology headquarters.
dbvanhorn on Dec. 6, 2006 10:25 PM
That's the one.
Glad to hear he's out of there. I agree it's a pity about the wasted funds, but you can't turn back the clock.
tlatoani on Dec. 6, 2006 9:39 PM
He's better off out of that place. Good for him!
wormquartet on Dec. 6, 2006 9:47 PM
Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!
This is insane. Glad to hear your brother is out.
You should write a friggin' book about this place - all your posts about it are frightening and disturbingly entertaining.
-=ShoEboX=-
rachelann1977 on Dec. 6, 2006 10:33 PM
Both colleges you suggeste are good choices, but let me make a plug for Wayne state University. They have a superior college of science, and are awesome for pre-med. They have recently added dorms, and are very reasonable in cost, comparable to Oakland University. Also, the entire campus is safer than most suburbs, since they have their own police department. I have stories, sure, but in my entire time there, I never once witnessed or was a victim of any crime.
users on Dec. 7, 2006 5:17 AM
A grand idea, however, I'd suggest getting as many credits as possible at a local community college for a considerably lower price first, then transferring to one of these schools (Wayne, Eastern, etc).
dawnwolf on Dec. 6, 2006 10:35 PM
I second the Wayne State option, particularly since that will get him out of your parents' house and into a highly diverse environment.
tlatoani on Dec. 6, 2006 10:40 PM
Another option -- probably similar in cost to Wayne State -- would be Eastern.
(Wayne is a great school, but an urban campus might be too much culture shock all at once.)
drkelso on Dec. 6, 2006 11:47 PM
So was this a chaperoned sports event at the time?
And for the rest of the audience...if you think that was bad, PCC has a funny rule stating that students are allowed to drive home for the weekend. And on top of that, they can drive home in a mixed group of three or more people as long as all the people in the group live at the destination or somewhere along the way.
So, since my girlfriend (and now my wife) lived in Orlando, and I lived in a town about an hour away, we would get a third person and drive to Central Florida for the weekend "unchaperoned" and with the permission of the Dean of Students (in writing). We usually found a third person that lived closer to Pensacola than our destination so we could have time alone. And we basically spent the entire weekend together.
And it was ok as long as we didn't cross the street in a car together. Go figure.
Sorry about your brother, but then I'm not really. It will be better for him in the long run. My vote is with ASU. It's nice here this time of year. I'm sitting here with the windows open.
rmeidaking on Dec. 7, 2006 12:55 AM
I hope he has a good de-tox opportunity somewhere. Somehow, I don't think that coming home to parents who were paying the tuition to send him there is going to help his peace of mind at all.
How *are* your parents reacting? What level of distress are they showing?
If the school is unaccredited, does this mean that he'd have to start over at a new school, or will some of the coursework transfer?
This looks to me - and probably to most of your friends - like the best thing that could have happened. It may not seem that way to other people. How does your brother feel about it?
matt-arnold on Dec. 7, 2006 5:28 PM
Hardly any coursework will transfer. He tried a year ago when he sat out a semester to earn money.
You're making an assumption about finances. My parents don't have much to pay into the tuition, room and board of their children at school. But as for what material support they did offer; yeah, that's gotta sting some.
From what little I can tell so far, they don't seem to show much more distress about this than did were about the fact that he didn't have a workable educational and career plan to begin with. They have almost expressed a sense of tired resignation toward his inability to defend his life choices with a rational explanation.
I presume it has to do with leaving their worries in God's hands, and believing their son if he says God told him to do something. I'm not sure whether he actually has told them this. In either case, God's will is an excuse to not look strategically at life and figure out how to cope with the stress that comes with that. Nowhere in the bible does it say "God helps those who help themselves," and if it ever did, that probably got censored from scripture centuries ago for this reason.
Andy doesn't express anything that would suggest he's interested in being detoxed from fundamentalism, or the slightest desire to take a principled stand against knuckle-dragging authoritarianism, and he isn't impressed by the comparison of PCC to "an American Taliban without guns". Neither will he take a stand in favor of it on principles, only on the pragmatic grounds that it's the easiest and all his friends are there: the same pragmatic grounds I used. He just goes on living like a person with no religion, going through the motions of religious conformity. This is similar to me at that age. You see, authoritarianism is the path of least resistance for primates. Subordinates willingly seek out gods and biblical authority figures because they don't have to grow up nearly so much. No wonder so many PCC students treat it like a party school, only without the parties.
I don't know whether my parents' reaction will be similar to the time he decided to sit out a semester to earn money. I don't think they liked that, but they knew it was his life to live. This can only be more upsetting than that was, but my parents truly care for their kids ... even to the point of bending the most emotionally difficult rules of doctrinal purity, I have observed. They have not declared either of the black sheep anathema or ceased eating meals with them in accordance with scripture. They tend to be pretty soft-spoken about everything in the past few years.
To understand my culture of origin, this lack of communication on the part of PCC students and their parents, you need to realize there is an unspoken "don't ask, don't tell" policy about the inner life. Thoughts are kept inside. With rare and valuable exceptions, only externals are confronted in the home and at the school.
rachelann1977 on Dec. 7, 2006 6:11 PM
So, where do you think the path of least resistance will lead him now?
matt-arnold on Dec. 7, 2006 6:31 PM
Extrapolating from my own history is not giving me a clear forecast about that, because he's into very different fields from mine, with different market forces that will push him into different niches than I was pushed when I was a similar limp dishrag.
I hope everyone understands that I am not blaming him for being a kid and not knowing what he wants. He is not to be blamed, he is to be coached and empowered and pushed out of the nest gradually but steadily.
In this life everybody has to be their own business manager, talent agent, and self-marketer. These are really hard, and I sympathize with my brother deeply. I'm 32, and I'm still not good at it, but at least I started trying to come up with a strategy. At 20 years old I didn't even know that would ever be expected of me.
1atomtan on Feb. 3, 2007 2:36 PM
Matt,
They probably did him a favor and it's good you stand behind him.
Great post on being your own best business manager.....very true. Every single time I ever tried to take so called Christian advice and went against my own business savy...it bit me hard and cost me much. I don't take that type of advice any longer.
trav13369 on Dec. 7, 2006 1:29 AM — OMG!!
this isn't a school, it's a cult. People doing the Big Brother thing 24/7 isn't conducive to learning. Good thing he is outta there.
etain on Dec. 7, 2006 2:54 AM
I -hate- to ask this: but -why- would someone go there?
I do love the term "making eye babies," though and enjoy using it to freak out my roommate.
I'd also point out that, from what I've learned, getting a degree in something other than pre-med is good if you actually want to be a doctor. But don't have four majors. (Pitt, where I go, is like "So you want to be a doctor!" in everyone's face. I've learned more about becoming a doctor than I ever wanted to.)
On a totally random, unrelated note: I have begun listing my religion as Googlism.
rachelann1977 on Dec. 7, 2006 6:09 PM
I don't know about other schools, but at Wayne state it is not possible to get a degree in pre-med. It's just a track, with certain classes you have to take outlined, and a counselor to help you get into medical school when the time comes. You still have to declare a major to graduate, you don't have a choice. I think almost all accredited schools are like this.
sarahmichigan on Dec. 7, 2006 12:17 PM
Best wishes for your brother's education from here on out.
uplinktruck on Dec. 7, 2006 4:46 PM
Good for your brother.
Couple of questions: What happened to the girl? Do you get any of the tuition back?
matt-arnold on Dec. 7, 2006 4:52 PM
To a PCC alumni, it goes without saying she would have got expelled. The "offense" was identical and the rules are, if anything, a little stricter for women. I'll be surprised if her boyfriend doesn't get shipped as well for complicity of any kind. They'll investigate whether he had any knowledge that she was planning to do this. If he asked Andy to do it, he'll probably be shipped.
They get no refunds of any kind.
uplinktruck on Dec. 7, 2006 5:01 PM
So they have a financial incentive to unload students. I know there is probably a contractual agreement of some kind with no refund language. But it would still be fun to haul them into small claims court for a prorated balance just for harassment value. You know their lawyer would set them back some cash just to deal with you.
matt-arnold on Dec. 7, 2006 6:21 PM
I'd be interested to see what would happen. PCC has an industrial-grade legal team and seems willing to fight anything to the end. They fought when they tried to shut down www.pensacolachristiancollege.com which was critical of them. But it wasn't enough to win that case. They put up a fight to keep their textbook business from being stripped of its nonprofit status, and lost that too. The real legal insurance PCC has is the idea that fundamentalists ought to be a civilization separate from the secular world; so the students and their parents are queasy about legal action between believers.
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?
Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.
-- Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8
drkelso on Dec. 7, 2006 7:14 PM
One of the advantages of this is that he is likely not out a whole lot of money. PCC tuition, room and board is only about five to six thousand a year. While that is a fairly significant chunk of change, it isn't enough to ruin your life. And I'm guessing he only lost one semester's worth (not counting loss of credits for previous year's work). And some universities will take some of the credits.
Something Alison did when she left was to enroll at Pensacola Junior College to take a course. They accepted many of her PCC credits and then the PJC credits would have been valid to transfer to another university. There are other schools that will do that too if he really decides it is worth the trouble to do that.
I got the impression he is 20? That's not that old and starting over isn't really going to affect his life any. It may seem like it to him but it's really small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. He needs to find a good school and try again.
Anonymous on Dec. 10, 2006 5:54 AM — Fascinating Story
I periodically look for information about PCC since I was a student for 3 semesters (fall 1988-fall 1989). Although I have never served in the military, I have often compared it to a combination of boot camp and Jim Jones Guyana (minus the Kool-Aid).
It is a shame that this institution seems to still be going strong. I deserves to be closed.
I often cringe when I hear of people singing the praises of A-Beka since it is that company that is helping to keep PCC's door open. I am glad to hear that the IRS has gone after them.
Your brother will be much better off for having had his connection with PCC severed. Best of luck to him for a speedy recovery from PCC.
Sincerely,
Jeff in Wyoming
Anonymous on Jan. 30, 2007 12:20 PM
I have to disagree with much of the comments on here. But I do agree with the fact that the rules are a little strict. However, there are reasons students attend PCC. I believe that several of these students actually felt led of the Lord to attend PCC. I for one have only visited this college. Me and my wife dated while she was enrolled there. We knew the "rules of engagement" everytime I visited. She graduated in 2001 and we married soon after. I am in the military and it is nothing like the training we go through. It is however a great place to learn christian fundamentals and also how to be an example in a world that definately needs them.
1atomtan on Feb. 3, 2007 2:33 PM
I pretty much agree with Matt's take on it 100%. Especially the knuckle dragging part. The only thing PCC is good for is to shine as an example of how "not" to turn out. Same with Christian fundementals (which are varied in meaning) The example to the world will not be taught or seen at PCC.
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