A faculty survey at Shorter University, a Southern Baptist-affiliated institution in Rome, Ga., has found overwhelming dissatisfaction with the institution’s requirement that all employees sign a statement rejecting premarital sex and homosexuality, the Rome News-Tribune reported.
More than half of respondents to the anonymous survey, which was commissioned by a group called the Committee for Integrity, said they planned to resign from the institution. Nearly 90 percent expressed no confidence in the university’s president, Donald V. Dowless.
The “personal lifestyle statement,” which also prohibits employees from consuming alcohol in public locations such as restaurants, was adopted by the Board of Trustees last October.
University officials dismissed the survey results as not representative of campus attitudes. Mr. Dowless said that the statement was necessary to bring the institution back to its Christian roots. While some may be opposed to the university’s direction, he said, there has also been an “influx of renewed support from students, faculty, staff, and alumni.”
