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Leaders of a Bartlesville university pulled the plug on their membership to the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), and not a moment too soon, according to the school’s president.

Oklahoma Wesleyan University is no longer affiliated with the association that has 182 Christian institutions, including Oklahoma Baptist University, Oklahoma Christian University and Oral Roberts University, as members.

The difficult decision came earlier this month, and the school contacted northeastern Oklahoma media to share the news.

The reason for leaving?

Fellow CCCU schools’ Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia and Goshen College in Indiana hired non-celibate homosexual staff and faculty this semester.

Southern Baptist-affiliated Union University in Tennessee was the first to leave the Christian college group, and Wesleyan followed suit.

“It is time for our university to move in a different direction,” Everett Piper, Oklahoma Wesleyan’s president, told Tulsa World.

In July, CCCU said talks were underway with member schools to determine a course of action in response to the policy change toward same sex-couples at schools. Consulting with all 182 schools is expected to wrap up Monday, according to InsideHigherEd.com.

But Wesleyan couldn’t wait for the outcome.

“The CCCU’s reluctance to make a swift decision sends a message of confusion rather than conviction,” Piper said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed.


Print headline: Wesleyan out

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