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October 23, 2008, 02:55 PM ET
No Rated-R Movies at Liberty U., But There Is a Snowless Ski Mountain
The Roanoke Times reports on the new amenities prospective students will find at Liberty University, the “Bible Boot Camp” founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell. The list includes some surprises.
The university has built a track for off-road motorcycles, a paintball battlefield, and an equestrian center, for instance. Its latest addition is a snowless ski mountain — a 500-foot slope covered in foam and “a polymer skin kept slick with small misting devices,” as described by the Times. Other amenities include organized shopping trips to the local malls.
In the amenities arms race (think of the oft-cited climbing wall), this is taking things to the next level, in what many people might think is a rather cheesy way. Indeed, promoters of baser forms of entertainment — like Ultimate Fighting and gambling — have contacted Liberty, wanting to get in on the action, the Times story says. Those offers were turned down.
Readers can draw their own conclusions about a college that turns to theme-park-like amenities to attract students. Liberty is already drawing from a small and self-selected segment of prospective students; it’s unclear whether paintball and snowless slopes will help solidify enrollment.
Certainly it will do nothing to bolster the university’s reputation among sustainability advocates. A hill covered in plastic would be ridiculed at any college claiming to be “green” — which, for the record, is not a claim we’ve heard from Liberty. —Scott Carlson
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