Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 17:15:22 -0400 (EDT) From: Darrell128@aol.com Subject: NR 97092: Calvin Ranked Fourth Most Sober College in America NR #1997-092: Calvin Ranked Fourth Most Sober College in America, 12th Academically Best of 125 Regional Colleges and Universities Calvin College takes a lot of heat from conservatives in its parent denomination who accuse the 4100-student undergraduate school of deviating from the evangelical theology of the Christian Reformed Church. Whether or not Calvin is becoming religiously liberal, its opponents in the 286,000-member denomination won't be able to knock the school for drunk or slouchy students. In its annual rating list released August 20, the Princeton Review ranked Calvin College fourth in the category of "stone cold sober" schools. The next day, US News and World Report ranked Calvin the twelfth-best academically of 125 regional colleges and universities. In a positive note for thrifty Dutch in a denomination whose membership is still largely descended from Netherlands immigrants, the school also ranked as the seventh-best value among Midwestern schools surveyed by US News and World Report. The only schools with a higher ranking for student sobriety were Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and the California Institute of Technology. NR #1997-092: For Immediate Release Calvin Ranked Fourth Most Sober College in America, 12th Academically Best of 125 Regional Colleges and Universities by Darrell Todd Maurina, Press Officer United Reformed News Service GRAND RAPIDS, MI (August 21, 1997) -- Calvin College takes a lot of heat from conservatives in its parent denomination who accuse the 4100-student undergraduate school of deviating from the evangelical theology of the Christian Reformed Church. Whether or not Calvin is becoming religiously liberal, its opponents in the 286,000-member denomination won't be able to knock the school for drunk or slouchy students. In its annual rating list released August 20, the Princeton Review ranked Calvin College fourth in the category of "stone cold sober" schools. The next day, US News and World Report ranked Calvin the twelfth-best academically of 125 regional colleges and universities. In a positive note for thrifty Dutch in a denomination whose membership is still largely descended from Netherlands immigrants, the school also ranked as the seventh-best value among Midwestern schools surveyed by US News and World Report. The college's sobriety rating attracted widespread attention in the local media and national attention on ABC News' "Good Morning America," whose announcers confused the school named for the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformer John Calvin with former US President Calvin Coolidge. The only schools with a higher ranking for student sobriety were Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and the California Institute of Technology. Wesleyan, Grove City, and Calvin are all religious schools; Grove City College is a conservative school affiliated with the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). Calvin ranked fourth-best in the country in the Princeton Review's survey of "town-gown" relations between the college and community -- no surprise considering that the Christian Reformed Church has twice the membership of any other Protestant denomination in metro Grand Rapids. The college received positive ratings ranging from 17th lowest rate of marijuana usage to tenth highest rate of regular student prayers, but had the eleventh lowest ranking in the country for frequency of classroom discussions. Calvin also received top twenty ratings for best administration, leaning to the right politically, hard liquor not widely used, and "future Rotarians and Daughters of the American Revolution." Last year, Calvin was rated the tenth most sober school by the Princeton Review -- a category which the organization said was based on "student responses to survey questions concerning the use of alcohol and drugs, hours of study each day, and the popularity of the Greek system." None of the other four undergraduate liberal arts colleges associated with the Christian Reformed Church, or any of the three colleges associated with the 313,000-member Reformed Church in America, were rated by the Princeton Review. "In order to be in this book you need to be in the Random House guide of 311 best colleges," said Ed Custard, who noted that his test-preparation and student services company -- not related to any college or university -- surveys over 56,000 students per year and produces 61 different lists ranking colleges according to a variety of student life categories. "They range from best overall academic experience to party schools and best overall towns," said Custard. "We rank the top twenty and bottom twenty in each category." According to Custard, the guide seeks to provide information to prospective students similar to what might be provided about a college by an older brother or sister who attended. "We seek to discuss the kind of things you're never going to find in college admissions literature; we will point out that the dorms are dingy and the food isn't so good, while still pointing out that these are the best schools in the country," said Custard. Calvin College media relations director Phil de Haan said parents of prospective students should be pleased by his college's ranking on student sobriety and academics. "Calvin students do quite a bit of studying and I think there is a correlation between being ranked "stone cold sober" and being ranked year after year on the US News and World Report list, which is pretty prestigious," said de Haan. Although Calvin bans alcohol from campus, de Haan noted that the Dutch founders of the Christian Reformed Church and its denominational college didn't share the theological objections to alcohol and tobacco use that often underlie similar restrictions at other evangelical schools. "We've never been the type of school that said to students, alcohol is wrong, a sin; smoking is wrong, a sin," said de Haan. "The majority of our students who live on campus are not 21, and to have a permissive alcohol policy on campus would fly in the face of the fact that for most students it would be illegal." "We've tried to teach our students how to responsibly treat all areas of life, how to look at the whole of life coming together viewed from a Christian perspective," said de Haan. "There's a whole Reformed way of looking at life that teaches you to look at those things that cross your path." Founded in 1876 as a seminary for training the denomination's clergy, Calvin has granted four-year undergraduate liberal arts degrees since 1921. Calvin Theological Seminary -- now under separate governance but also owned by the Christian Reformed Church -- shares the college's suburban Grand Rapids campus. Although the percentage of Christian Reformed students has declined in recent years, the CRC still accounts for a majority of the student body. Cross-References to Related Articles: [No related articles on file] Contact List: Phil de Haan, Director of Media Relations, Calvin College 3201 Burton St. SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 O: (616) 957-6475 * H: (616) 241-4061 * F: (616) 957-8551 * Pager: (616) 680-1958 * E-Mail: DEHP@Calvin.edu Jeanne Krier, Publicist, Random House/Princeton Review Books [media calls only] 111 Fourth Avenue, New York, NY 10003 O: (212) 539-1350 Paul Cohen, Public Relations Director, Princeton Review [media calls only] O: (212) 874-8282 Princeton Review customer calls [for obtaining copies of book]: O: (800) 793-2665 * Website: "www.review.com" ---------------------------------------------------------- file: /pub/resources/text/reformed/archive97: nr97-092.txt .