By Amelia Krauss
News Editor
“Jessica” was a normal Union student wishing to earn her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting and to eventually open an art studio in Nashville with a few friends.
To help fund her education, she pursued her love of volleyball and joined the Lady Bulldogs.
But one fall day in the middle of volleyball season, she emerged from her dormitory bathroom with an at-home pregnancy test in her hands and tears rolling down her cheeks.
She was pregnant.
Jessica is not alone. Each year, two to four unwed Union students approach Senior Vice President of Student Services and Dean of Students Dr. Kimberly Thornbury with the same news.
Thornbury is responsible for helping these women make wise choices regarding their pregnancies and for upholding the university’s official pregnancy policy, which is referred to in the student handbook and documented on Union’s website.
“Union University believes strongly that God designed sexual activity to occur within the context of marriage,” it reads. “However, our policies also encourage an expecting mother to choose life should an unexpected pregnancy occur.
Union University will not incentivize abortion. Therefore, unmarried students who are expecting will be permitted to continue their studies at Union.
Although students cannot live in traditional on-campus housing as they begin their second trimester, Union will work with the mother (and father) to find off-campus housing after the first trimester. …”
Widespread misconceptions about the university’s dealings with pregnant women prevail around campus.
A random survey of 29 students dining in the Lexington Inn on a weekday afternoon revealed that many students believe Union women who become pregnant are automatically expelled.
One student suggested that certain circumstances might allow a pregnant woman to stay enrolled, and only four of those surveyed — all males — believed the university does not force pregnant students to leave the school.
Students made comments such as, “I’m pretty sure you get kicked out unless you get married;” “(Pregnant students) are asked to leave,” and “I heard that both the girl and guy have to leave or get married.”
One junior psychology major said, “I heard rumors that people mysteriously vanish when they (start showing).”
Several others echoed a sophomore social work major who said, “I heard the girls are pressured to leave.”
Thornbury sometimes receives anonymous phone calls from people wondering what would happen.
“When you don’t know, you just assume the worst,” Thornbury said. “So there’s fear, because a lot of these students, despite the fact that they’ve been sexually active or assaulted, they love Union. They love the community. They understand it to be a special place. And there’s a high level of anxiety that they’ll have this community taken away from them.”
She said the main goal of the university’s pregnancy policy is to protect the life of the unborn child and help each woman make the best decisions possible, whether that means leaving Union or staying. The dean said there are many concerns to consider: child care, debt, insurance, employment and finances.
“(Pregnancy) just happens, and we deal with it in a realistic way— in a grace-filled, realistic way,” Thornbury said. “The core values of the university don’t vanish when people are pregnant. We’re people-focused so we make sure (the moms are) OK. You have to get a plan for their future. You talk about their faith, and, I mean, it’s really complex.
“I don’t just have one meeting. Either I have multiple meetings (with them), or I partner with someone who has multiple meetings. They need to have an advocate. … I know this phrase is controversial, but it takes a village (to raise a child), especially if you’re a single mom. You need to start building up a team that’s going to help you.”
However, there are still consequences for sexual impropriety.
“’Grace-filled’ does not mean that there are no rules, no expectations or no consequences,” said Dr. David Dockery, university president. “It does mean that we try to find the right way to respond to the students who have made unwise choices.”
However, because pregnancy is sometimes the result of rape and because each situation is unique, the response is tailored to the individuals involved.
In cases in which the pregnancy is the result of consensual sexual activity, both the woman and man — if he also is a Union student — face several consequences.
Handling pregnancy
While Thornbury says she has never expelled a student for pregnancy, the pregnant mother and the father of the child are required to step down from positions of influence on campus.
“When somebody breaks a community value, they usually go on probation, and that means stepping away from leadership,” Thornbury said. “It’s not because of the pregnancy per se. Leaders are held to a higher standard. Depending on the violation, most students who break a community value (go on) probation, so (the pregnancy policy is) consistent with that. Not forever, but for a time.”
Thornbury said she and administration also evaluate financial aid the pregnant woman and her partner may be receiving to determine whether the students still fulfill the donor’s expectations for scholarship recipients.
While in some instances scholarships must be removed, Thornbury said they are never removed mid-semester, and sometimes they are later reinstated.
The pregnant woman and the baby’s father also are required to attend counseling, usually through Birth Choice of Jackson, a pro-life crisis pregnancy resource center that offers ultrasounds, counseling, parenting classes and Bible studies.
The woman also is expected to move off campus or into Warmath Family Housing after her first trimester — an act of consideration for roommates who may not be prepared for or willing to deal with the realities of pregnancy and childbirth.
Thornbury said she and other members of the administration work with the mother to find suitable housing that will be safe and comfortable for her and the baby.
“We just look at the total context,” Thornbury said. “We’re not moving someone during finals. We just use common sense and communication, (which) are going to rule the situation. Christ-likeness, kindness, common sense and communication are words that I would want to characterize the conversations that happen.”
The mother and father are encouraged to be involved in and become active members of a local church where they can build a spiritual support system.
Thornbury said she also makes reconciliation between the woman and her parents a priority so the family can work through the difficult time together.
“We talk them through what … it looks like to stay within our values and context,” Thornbury said. “We don’t pressure them to get married. We try to connect them with a local church and people who will be with them for the long haul.”
While pregnant students are never forced or pressured to leave the university, Thornbury said many women choose to transfer for various reasons or to return home to their families for the duration of their pregnancy.
For “Jessica,” finding out she was pregnant was terrifying. After taking the in-home pregnancy test in her dorm room, she huddled with her suitemates and they cried and prayed together, trying to figure out what to do next.
Abortion was not an option, so carrying her child to full term was her only choice.
After a visit to Health Services that confirmed her pregnancy, Jessica approached Thornbury with her news.
“I was a nervous wreck and so I remember that she was looking me in the eye,” Jessica said. “She was sweet about it. I was just so nervous that when I walked away, I felt led in the right direction about how to get help. I felt like I understood that she cared about me as a person. It was still hard because she had to tell me I was losing my (volleyball) scholarship.”
Jessica was surprised she was not expelled. She left Union not because she was pressured to do so but because she wished to be near family.
“I just really respected that (Thornbury), in talking to me, was, like, so loving and so supportive and so helpful with getting me help with (Birth Choice) and helping me know what my options are, but she also made it very clear where Union stands on the subject and that they think (sex before marriage is) wrong,” Jessica said. “Dean Thornbury did a good job of clearly defining and implementing what the school stands for and yet she also fully expressed to me her care for me as a student and a person.”
Creating the official policy
The official university pregnancy policy as outlined on Union’s website has been in force since Thornbury came to Union in 1999. But there was no official policy in writing.
“I didn’t inherit anything,” Thornbury said. “I just did what I felt like was the right thing to do.”
The pregnancy policy was not documented until 2008 when administration formalized in writing what they had already been doing since 1999.
It was reiterated in the student handbook last fall because, “After numerous discussions with students and faculty, it became clear that more awareness was needed about our policy,” Thornbury said.
During January and spring of 2008, Dr. Gavin Richardson, professor of English, was teaching a course on the Shakespeare play “Measure for Measure,” which tells the story of a man who gets his fiancé pregnant in a puritanical town and whose fate lies in the hand of a hypocritical adulterer.
Richardson said the play initiated discourse in his classes on the ethics of sexuality and real-world policy decisions regarding pregnancy.
Those discussions, Richardson said, prompted him to contact Thornbury to share with her the class discussions that had occurred.
His Shakespeare courses coincided with Thornbury’s discussions about making the university’s pregnancy policy more public, so Richardson helped formalize the language of the policy and document it in writing.
Richardson said the class discussions and his students’ critiques of Union’s policy confirmed the widespread misconceptions about the university’s dealings with pregnancy.
“I remember (the students) being very surprised that you didn’t just get booted (for being pregnant), because that’s what they thought,” Richardson said. “I suspect it’s a Union folktale, because Union is Southern Baptist and in every way conservative; therefore, they expected a hard-line response to pregnancy. I think that most students found the policy to be remarkably grace-filled and unexpectedly so.”
Thornbury said many misconceptions about the policy might have carried over from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, when the university response was slightly different.
Maggie Nell Brewer, 79, who worked at Union from 1965 to 1995 as dean of women, dean of students and vice president for student affairs, dealt with roughly two to three pregnancies per year.
In most situations, she said, pregnant students were required to leave Union for a semester so they could care for their babies and adjust to life as mothers.
Administration would usually allow the students to finish their current semester and withdraw without penalty.
Those students could then reapply and usually were readmitted. However, those students rarely reapplied.
“We handled (the situations) individually and tried to be compassionate and as discreet as we could be,” Brewer said. “But we had to uphold the standards of the college.”
During much of her time at Union, abortion was never a real concern, she added.
Thornbury’s approach is similar in that violating university standards results in definite consequences and that grace and compassion are offered to support both mother and baby during a difficult time.
“The issue of life is very important to Union University, and we want to be a community that supports life in every way and at every turn,” Thornbury said.
Kim Mayer, nurse manager at Birth Choice, said that of the 650 clients Birth Choice served between January and October of 2012, 42 percent were between the ages of 20 and 24, and 20 percent were enrolled in college.
While some Union students confide in Thornbury about their pregnancies and seek counseling at Birth Choice, Mayer said other women choose to end the pregnancy.
“Union is blessed to have a very pro-life student health nurse and a pro-life director of student services,” Mayer said, “But I worry about the girls who have the money to go to Memphis or Nashville to have an abortion. … Because we serve, well, the lower income, middle-class folks. It’s the ones that have the means to get to those cities to do that — those are the ones I worry about.”
Mayer believes that wealthier women who get pregnant endure more pressure to finish school, earn a degree and establish a career, goals that are much more difficult to reach when trying to take care of a baby.
Mayer’s husband, Paul Mayer, is director of health services at Union and administers pregnancy tests to some patients. He often is the first one to break the news of a pregnancy.
He said he would never under any circumstances offer abortive medications to students, but he understands young women often face pressures to abort, even on Christian campuses.
“I’m aware of one time where a young woman was pregnant, and I knew she was and then she wasn’t, and nothing was ever said to me or to her,” Mayer said. “It was a fact, and that was how it was. … There’s a lot of pressure.
“The trip to Memphis is something that breaks my wife’s heart, and she can tell you how often how girls from this university and universities from all over the area take a trip to Memphis and how heartbreaking that is. And I think people know it’s an option.”
According to an online report by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit organization that tracks abortion statistics, one in 10 women will have an abortion by age 20, one in four by age 30 and three in 10 by age 45.
Kim Mayer said that abortion rates for Christians and non-Christians are roughly the same.
She believes it is the responsibility of Christian parents, pastors and the church to discuss these issues and “be more vigilant about teaching biblical relationships.”
“Boys and girls at Union are going to have sex,” she said. “Let’s wake up and understand this is happening. Do we need to embrace that behavior? No. We need to speak God’s truth into the lives of the people that are there and make that the goal instead of shunning the pregnant girl, because the pregnant girl did not get pregnant all by herself.”
Victim of rape
For former Union student “Gabriella,” pregnancy ignited gossip among fellow students.
While enrolled at Union, Gabriella was raped. Knowing she could never give up her child, she chose to go through with the pregnancy and decided to finish the current semester before taking a semester break.
But out of concern for her safety and the safety of her child, her lawyers advised her not to openly share the circumstances surrounding her pregnancy.
As Gabriella began to gain weight that semester, students began to talk.
No one knew the real story, and Gabriella was not at liberty to tell them. The obvious assumption, she said, was that the pregnancy was a result of consensual sexual activity.
“Rumors flew like wildfire,” she said. “I wanted with everything inside of me (to say), ‘This is what happened. Don’t you feel horrible?’ I just had to let people talk and let them assume and let them think what they were going to think.”
Gabriella said her closest friends were supportive even without knowing the real story, but that others, including women in her sorority, were not.
She could sense judgment, and some of her Christian friends shunned her.
Despite the negative reaction from some of her peers, Gabriella said the “amazing” support of faculty and staff was what enabled her to return to Union the semester after her child’s birth, she said.
Thornbury was a constant source of encouragement during her time at Union, counseling services offered sessions free of charge and professors were flexible with exams and assignments.
“When I tried to finish out my classes, I had horrible morning sickness,” she said. “… I was having to run out in classes. … The teachers didn’t give me grief by any means. … I remember several professors creating diversions so other students didn’t notice I was escaping class.
“The faculty and staff at Union have the bigger picture in mind, and through the situation, I feel like it was proven to me that I’m loved no matter what by the faculty and staff, and I felt full support the entire time.”
Paul Mayer said he hopes he can be a source of encouragement and support when pregnant women come to him, because he himself experienced a crisis pregnancy during his college years.
He was a sophomore when he lost his virginity with his girlfriend and became a father.
He was going to school to become a Lutheran minister and experienced pressure from many different sources to encourage his girlfriend to abort.
Though Mayer was experiencing a period of doubt in his Christian walk, he said he “had a sense of what life was and (he) was responsible for that life.”
The couple decided to marry so they could care for their child together.
Though they later divorced, Mayer said that season of his life helped him grow as an individual.
“I didn’t get to do what I thought I was going to do,” he said. “I joined the Army and spent years in the Army. Those were harsh consequences. I don’t regret them.
“I think I’m a better man because of them. I think what these young mothers experience through these challenges is they gain insight and they gain strength and hopefully develop a new facet to themselves not just as young women but as moms, too, and hopefully as wives.”
Mayer said his now 27- year old son is a “very smart and free-spirited” artist who “brings a lot to the world (that) would have otherwise not been.”
Mayer said everything at the clinic is medically confidential and that no one has to fear condemnation.
“Whatever it takes to make sure they’re OK and the baby is OK,” Mayer said. “I’ll hold their hand and get them wherever they need to go. It’s a secret as long as they need it to be a secret.”
Future hope
Gabriella returned to Union after giving birth to her child and graduated magna cum laude.
She is now a middle school teacher in Tennessee, married to her best friend from Union.
She now has two children and refers to them both as her “miracles.” She said she would never have been able to make the transition back to Union without Thornbury’s support and encouragement.
Jessica, after giving birth to her son, received a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies at a college in Kentucky and will graduate with her associate’s degree in cardiac sonography in May, a career choice inspired by the volunteers at Birth Choice who gave the ultrasound that showed her little boy’s fingers and toes at eight weeks old.
She also is a volleyball coach for her alma mater and at the Midamerica Volleyball Association. Her son is now 5 years old.
Thornbury said she wants to create a “Bonhoeffer-type community” at Union where students can have meaningful conversations about all subjects, including pregnancy.
“Union is going to spend the majority of our time talking about building healthy relationships and God’s design for healthy sexuality and families within marriage,” she said. “So we’re going to spend the majority of our time talking about abstinence and God’s plan, and we will still do that and train students on what that looks like.
“But regardless of whether or not they get pregnant, there are some students who have been sexually active and so we also want to talk to them about God’s grace and what God’s plan looks like for them after that.
“God’s plan never stops for a student once a choice is made. God does not operate that way. So we will keep talking about both plans: the ideal plan that he has laid out in Scripture but also a theology of grace for students who have not followed that plan.”
