As students begin to contemplate the consequences of not attending chapel early in the spring semester, Oklahoma Christian University holds to its requirement of each student obtaining 65 Kudos as a part of the Ethos program.
Summer Lashley, director of the Ethos program, believes chapel is an integral part of the fabric of Oklahoma Christian.
“The unique part of the Ethos program is it allows the students to be in the driver’s seat of their own spiritual development,” Lashley said. “They’re able to choose the things that they want to be a part of.”
Despite this, many students find the fines associated with lacking Kudos problematic. According to the Oklahoma Christian student handbook, “fines are assessed by multiplying the number of deficits times $20 not to exceed $350. This option will only be allowed once or twice during a student’s time at OC.”
Junior Ngozi Iwunze said he supports the Ethos system as a whole but is against the way the university gives requirements for acquiring Kudos.
“The way that I think they can reform chapel is by asking students how many times they could go to chapel a week instead of just assuming, ‘He can just go three times a week,’” Iwunze said. “Maybe three times is too many times. I had a reduction last semester, and I felt like it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t enough because I didn’t get all my Kudos… There’s more than just work and school. Sometimes you’ve got to do things outside of that.”
According to Lashley, students could potentially be expelled from school for chronically not attending chapel, as it is a required aspect of Oklahoma Christian’s Spiritual Life program.
“I guess somebody could [pay their way out of chapel] once,” Lashley said. “Unfortunately, that might be the case one time. We might remove some people from school if they continue to be a chronic offender, so I don’t think that’s the only alternative.”
Some students, such as sophomore Crissy Abada, are against the Ethos program and believe that the atmosphere of chapel does not encourage students to grow closer to God.
“Most people are just on their phones, watching TV, doing homework,” Abada said. “I feel like fines make people not want to go to chapel even more because they’re like, ‘Oh, let’s make people pay if they don’t show up.’ But the thing is, if they can’t show up due to other issues, that just seems to be hurting the student.”
According to Lashley, students can get a Kudos reduction if chapel conflicts with work or class schedules. Some non-traditional students also get a reduction for commuting. With 1,500 to 2,000 events each semester, students have a variety of options when choosing where to attend chapel. Lashley said she recognizes spiritual life is very personal to each individual student.
“No required spiritual development program is a perfect system,” Lashley said. “So, we just try to do the best that we can. It won’t change anytime soon that [Kudos] are a required part of your experience at Oklahoma Christian. Some people aren’t going to like that, and some people are fine with it. I get that. Anything that we require like this isn’t going to be perfect.”
Despite controversy between students about the Ethos program, Lashley said she believes that students must remember why they attend chapel—to worship God.
“I sort of recognize the rub between making someone do something,” Lashley said. “I’ve just heard so many stories from students who went to an event because they needed to get the credit and ended up being blessed by it. I think that the Lord is so much bigger than that. We really are making Him small when we think that we should only be the ones to decide when we really want to go do something and that nothing should be required.”
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