College Chief Goes Off on 'Narcissistic' Students

Oklahoma Wesleyan U's president tells students to 'grow up,' stop playing victim
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 1, 2015 12:19 PM CST
College Chief Goes Off on 'Narcissistic' Students
Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, left, listens as Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Everett Piper prays at a rally on Aug. 13, 2015 in Bartlesville, Okla.   (Timothy Tai/Tulsa World via AP)

If you're planning on attending religious services at Oklahoma Wesleyan University, don't expect any "trigger warnings" before the sermon. That's the message of university President Dr. Everett Piper, who went off in a recent blog post on "self-absorbed and narcissistic" students who he says play the victim card whenever their feelings are hurt, KFOR reports. "Anyone who dares challenge them and, thus, makes them 'feel bad' about themselves, is a 'hater,' a 'bigot,' an 'oppressor,' and a 'victimizer,'" Piper complains in his Nov. 23 "This Is Not a Day Care. It's a University!" post, which he tells NBC News has been viewed more than half a million times so far. What originally set Piper off: a student who said he was "victimized" during a university chapel sermon in which a 1 Corinthians 13 reading "made [the student] feel bad for not showing love," Piper writes. "In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable."

Piper tells NBC he even went through the reading to make sure there wasn't something offensive within the text. Instead, he notes in his post (which he says wasn't directly aimed at that particular student but at the "broader community"), "that feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon is called a conscience. An altar call is supposed to make you … feel guilty." He goes on to say that the university shouldn't be considered a "safe place," but a place to learn "that life isn't about you" and that "you need to grow up." For those who don't like his anti-coddling message, he's got some more advice, as well as a diss on a neighboring state. "If you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn't one of them." (He probably wouldn't hire this Mizzou instructor.)

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