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Spiritual life received a makeover this summer in the form of Ethos, but as school began the new program left students confused and searching for answers.
So what exactly is Ethos?
“Ethos is a Greek word and it means the defining characteristic of a person or institution,” Summer Lashley, Ethos director, said. “So my question was: what do I want our ethos to be? What defines us?”
Thus, the Ethos program was born.
For students familiar with the old chapel method, the new Ethos program came as a bit of a shock. Lashley claims the inspiration for the new spiritual life program came from the student body.
“I’ve been here for awhile and have seen how much the students love Jesus and I want to keep that momentum,” Lashley said. “I think our students have such good hearts and a passion to serve and to do good things for the Kingdom. Now they’re in the driver’s seat of their own spiritual development on and off campus.”
With the new Ethos program comes the concept of “kudos,” another source of confusion amongst students.
“Basically, you’re going to be accumulating credits instead of subtracting debits,” Lashley said. “With chapel you used to just keep track of your skips, but now you’re adding instead of subtracting and we’re just calling those credits kudos and you can get those kudos in all sorts of different ways.”
Ethos was not, however, created to replace chapel but to provide other opportunities to supplement the old chapel system.
“While the Ethos program offers flexibility, chapel is great because it is important to learn the discipline of a daily pause,” Lashley said. “Chapel is important and it’s not going anywhere.”
Summer Lashley also assures students that for those not interested in the new Ethos program, using the regular method of going to chapel with the 15 skips will bring them to the correct amount of kudos points for the semester.
“A student can be as involved in this program as they want to be, and the cool thing is that they can tailor fit the program for them,” Lashley said. “If chapel’s your thing, then I think you should go everyday and accumulate your kudos that way, but if you want to try something else you can do that, too.”
The five pillars of Ethos are worship, servant-hood, discovery, discipleship and community. If an event on or off campus encompasses any of these pillars, it can be considered an Ethos event through the online submission form found in myOC.
Lashley has held several open meetings to explain to students the nature and the flexibility of the new Ethos program. It’s this flexibility of the Ethos program that has appealed to some students.
“I really like that this new Ethos program fits the diversity of the student body,” senior Jessica Frost said. “I go to View 63 and it’s cool that it counts for kudos points.”
Other students agreed with Frost that the new Ethos program could prove to be a positive change to campus.
“The goal of Ethos is to help us love God and love others well,” senior Leah Norman said. “The goal of Ethos is encouraging because it shows and helps us to have a heart like Jesus.”
Senior Joelle McMillen voiced her acceptance of a mandatory spiritual life program with new found flexibility.
“I really appreciate that Ethos allows us to go by events instead of certain days,” McMillen said. “It’s nice that I can easily fit events into my schedule that I know I will enjoy.”
Along with a student’s personal Ethos account available at MyOC, Oklahoma Christian University has created an app, available on both the Apple and Android markets, which allows each individual profile added accessible.
“I really wanted for students to have this program at their fingertips and I wanted to make it as easy as possible to keep track of kudos because 65 is a lot more to keep track of than 15,” Lashley said of the app.
While Ethos is going through its early stages, Summer Lashley asks students to be patient with the program as they work through any changes that need to be made.
“I don’t think this is perfect,” Lashley said. “In fact, I expect there to be a lot of hiccups along the way. I just ask for grace as we work through this together.”
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