Membership, visibility dwindles for some Christian clubs; meanwhile, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo students lead fight to revamp new policy
When Cal Poly Sal Luis Obispo hosts its annual Open House this April, during which campus clubs typically greet and recruit prospective visiting students, one longtime mainstay at the university will be conspicuously absent: Cru.
The Christian club will not be allowed to set up a table and pass out fliers, or meet and greet guests. It’s the same at Chico State, where Cru will not be allowed to showcase itself during the school’s annual fall recruitment drive. They’ve also been forbidden from hanging up posters in freshman dorms.
Gone are the days when Christian student clubs at Cal Poly Sal Luis Obispo, Chico State – and the other 21 Cal State universities across California – are allowed to set up shop in the quad and recruit.
This school year, CSU administrators labeled campus Christian groups that refuse to allow non-Christians to lead them “discriminatory.” As a result, Christian clubs at Cal State universities that refused to change their constitutions and check boxes saying they would allow non-Christians as leaders have been officially derecognized by their campus communities.
They’ve been scrubbed from campus websites and directories. They cannot take part in events that help campus clubs recruit new members and gain visibility. They are charged a more expensive, outsider fee to rent rooms on campus – straining their already tight coffers. They’ve lost a chance to receive a portion of student fees collected to help clubs on campuses thrive.
All these changes have hurt.
For Cru – one of three Christian clubs derecognized from Cal Poly and Chico State’s campuses this school year – participation has dwindled or outright plunged.
Before Cal Poly’s Cru chapter was derecognized, student Bible study leaders normally had 10 to 20 people come to their weekly Bible Studies. More recently, only two people showed up, Cal Poly senior Courtney Shipp, a former Cru member, told The College Fix.
And Greg Jao, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s national field director, told The College Fix that Chico State’s chapter – one of the bigger InterVarsity chapters – lost 50 members due to the new policy.
At Cal Poly, Cru can no longer reserve a room on campus as an organization, and must reserve rooms as an outside organization. That cost went from zero to $6,000 a year under the new policy, he said.
Josh Otto, Chico State’s Cru director, told The College Fixthat the cost for them to reserve a room went from being for free for the entire year to $900 for one-time use.
http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/21394/
