Current Students

Grading System Terminology
The grading system at New Saint. Andrews College employs a unique terminology, as outlined below. The reason we do not grade according to the standard A, B, C formula is three-fold. First, the fairly common problem of grade inflation has made the older system less informative than it used to be. Second, many of our students are so accustomed to excelling under the standard method of grading that they might think they are doing poorly in our program if they received the equivalent of a B, for example. With a different system of grading, our focus can return to where it ought to be—on the knowledge being acquired, rather than a very limited measuring stick of that knowledge. Third, we do not believe that quantitative measures are fully adequate to describe knowledge. However, for those students who transfer out of our college, we do have a means of translating the grades into the common system.

Students receive a grade report after the completion of each academic term. Because grade reports include personalized remarks from every instructor, these reports will normally be distributed three to four weeks following an academic term. For each term, full-time students will receive one score for each of their courses, and one for the final exam. The final exam score is a composite of the student's exam performance in each course. In calculating the composite score, a student's performance in Lordship or Principia Theologiae is weighted twice as much as the other courses. The final exam is calculated into the Grade Point Average.

Cumulative Grade Point Averages
Cumulative grade point averages (G.P.A.s) are calculated using the numerical value of each grade assigned for each course and composite exam grade on a student's transcript. Courses taken on a pass/fail basis are not factored into G.P.A. calculations. Students should note that the College's two required theology courses, Lordship and Principia Theologiae, receive double weight when calculating G.P.A. (See "Credit Requirements" under Degree Programs above.) A student's individual course grades and overall grade point average will be interpreted according to the following numerical interpretive key. This key will be used to determine whether a student has met the relevant criteria for graduation or graduation with academic honors.

Code of Conduct
New Saint Andrews College seeks to reform Christian higher education biblically from top to bottom—from its academic vision and curricula to the testimony of its faculty and students. The College seeks to recover true academic freedom, that is, submission to God's Word in all our actions and attitudes in and out of the classroom. The College has designed its Code of Conduct, therefore, to nurture a healthy Christian academic environment characterized by the zealous pursuit of biblical knowledge and wisdom.

Our hope is that students will follow God's law without being legalistic and exercise their Christian liberties without being worldly. The Code of Conduct reflects Scripture's warning that it is folly to strain against the protective fence of God's law just to see how close one can get to sin without getting burned (Prov. 14:9; 16:17; 28:7, 10). The Code also expresses the faculty and staff's hope of working with students who delight in the freedom found within Christ's vast domain safely encompassed by God's holy law (Ps. 119:97-112).

New Saint Andrews College students must pledge in writing their commitment to personal holiness, sound doctrine, cultural reformation, and academic integrity. By their pledge, students join the faculty and staff in submitting themselves to the Scripture's clear standards for all our labors together as a community of Christian scholars. The Code should encourage the more mature students in their maturity and stimulate the less mature to grow in faith, wisdom, and self-control. While the Code provides for the discipline of those who willfully violate its letter or spirit, the College hopes that the biblical principles embodied in the Code of Conduct will inspire all students toward greater obedience, self-discipline, and Christian love.

Personal Holiness
The College encourages students to cultivate with all diligence the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23; Eph. 5:8-21). As holy and loved children of God, students should clothe themselves with compassion, kindness, humility, forgiveness, and most of all brotherly love, and do everything, whether in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus with thanksgiving (Col. 3:12-17).

The College provides no lists of extrabiblical rules for students to follow that would foster legalism or pietism. Rather, the College expects students to live quiet and peaceable lives, devoted to the Word of God as their only ultimate rule for faith and practice, and to submit themselves fully and respectfully to all lawful familial, academic, ecclesiastical, and civil authorities.

The College expects that students will regularly worship God with the assembled saints of His church (Ps. 95:6-7; Heb. 10:25), pray with praise, confession, thanksgiving, and petitions to our Heavenly Father (Matt. 6:9-13; 1 Thess. 5:17), read and submit to God's Word (Ps. 119:89-112), and encourage their fellow students to pursue peace, godliness, and reverence (1 Tim. 2:1-4).

Students should exercise their Christian liberties not as an occasion to indulge the flesh, but to serve others out of love through the wise and moderate exercise of their liberty (Gal. 5:13-14; 1 Peter 2:13-16). By God's grace and through the church's instruction and discipline, students should abstain from the works of the flesh, such as sexual immorality, idolatry, hatred, discord, jealousy, wrath, selfish ambition, drunkenness, or debauchery, and to flee all temptations to those sins (Gal. 5:19-21, 24, 26; Eph. 5:3-7).

Sound Doctrine
New Saint Andrews expects students to hold to sound doctrine understood biblically within historic evangelical and orthodox Protestantism. The College expects students to embrace the Scriptures as their only ultimate rule of faith and life, on all matters of doctrine. While we affirm our fundamental unity with all the saints within the body of Christ, including those in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, as well as our great appreciation for the many gifts, insights, and contributions they bring to the broader Church, and we also affirm with great thankfulness our own Protestant history and Reformed tradition. To cultivate and preserve that tradition on which the College stands, we require students to be members of a confessionally evangelical and orthodox Protestant church, to seek out the same in the Moscow area, and to attend church regularly while a student of the College. Students who have any questions about appropriate church attendance should contact the Director of Student Affairs.

Students at New Saint Andrews will study the great historic Christian creeds, confessions, and councils, and the great theological debates in Church history. We do not expect students to arrive with a thorough understanding of doctrine and theology, but encourage free and open discussion and debate on these matters within the framework of our common Christian faith. Our students are not required to pledge their assent to any particular orthodox creed or confession within the wide realm of the historic Christian faith, and the College will not require students to violate their consciences with regard to Christian doctrine. However, students should avoid theological liberalism and other false gospels (and the churches that embrace them) and abstain from actively promoting doctrines contrary to the Reformed mission and goals of the College. All students, regardless of their personal creed or confession, must pledge to maintain a teachable spirit while they are instructed by faculty confessionally committed to Reformed theology.

The College also warns students, for the protection of their souls and the peace of the College, to avoid false teaching and errant doctrine. The College expects students will neither embrace nor promote, formally or informally, historic or contemporary doctrinal errors, such as Arianism, Socinianism, Pelagianism, Skepticism, Feminism, Pantelism, the so-called Openness of God Theology, etc.,*1 among their fellow students. If students do come to embrace such errant doctrines personally, they promise by their signed pledge to inform the College administration immediately and honestly in a letter offering to withdraw from the College.

Cultural Reformation
The College encourages students to diligently maintain and to encourage habits becoming faithful Christian young men and women: hard work, thankfulness, promptness, neatness, respectfulness, honesty, maturity, and self-discipline.

The College expects students will cultivate holy and edifying social relationships with their fellow students and with the College faculty and staff, avoiding even the appearance of unruly behavior, inappropriate conduct, disrespect, rebellion, or sinful and unlawful activities commonly associated with ungodly college students (e.g., drunkenness, sexual sins, illegal drug use, etc.).

Students should embrace and encourage the development of distinctively Christian music, art, literature, poetry, drama, and crafts. The College expects students to participate cautiously and critically in our predominantly pagan popular culture, and to avoid and to repudiate the culturally destructive (but often “socially acceptable”) glorification of sin found in contemporary films, music, video games, web sites, and so forth.

The College expects students to exercise proper manners and social graces, as befit Christian gentlemen and ladies, and so treat others with dignity and respect, especially those to whom honor is due.

Students should present themselves in public in such a way that considers the comfort and ease of others more important than their own. The College expects students to be well groomed and clean, to dress neatly and modestly, and to present themselves in a manner appropriate for the dignity of the occasion.

Commitment to Academic Integrity
The College expects students to express themselves truthfully and honestly in all facets of their academic work and personal relations with the College faculty, staff, and students. Students must do their own work, and their work alone, on all assignments, exercises, and examinations, oral or written, except where disclosed properly and fully in citations, footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, and/or other appropriate forms, and only within the limits allowed by the instructor and commonly recognized academic standards.

Students must avoid plagiarism, misrepresentation, misappropriation of the work of others, or any other form of academic dishonesty, whether intentional or the result of reckless disregard for academic integrity (see "Plagiarism" in Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers, sixth edition, p. 74 [5.2]). Such academic dishonesty may be grounds for disciplinary action by the instructor and the College administration up to and including dismissal from the College.

The College expects students neither to give nor to receive any assistance on their assignments, exercises, or examinations, oral or written, beyond that allowed by their instructor. The Student's Pledge is part of the New Saint Andrews College Student Code of Conduct. Students indicate that they have read, understood, and pledged to comply with the Code of Conduct by setting their hand to this Pledge.

Attendance
Students are required to attend every Seminar and Recitation. Instructors may cite unexcused absences as a cause for lowering a student's course grade in a given term.

Attendance at Disputato will be noted. Full-time students are expected to attend all Disputatos. Failure to do so may affect a student's composite final exam score.

The New Saint Andrews College Student's Pledge
As a New Saint Andrews student, I represent by my words, actions, and attitudes the Lord Jesus Christ and the College before the local community, the academic community, the church, and the watching world. Therefore, I freely and solemnly pledge, with God as my Witness, to uphold the honor of my Lord and of the College by honoring and cherishing the principles of the Code of Conduct outlined above in their application to all facets of my life, in or out of the academy, as long as I remain a New Saint Andrews student.

Commitment to Personal Holiness
I pledge to conduct myself with all holiness and reverence in word, deed, and attitude, as Scripture requires.

Commitment to Sound Doctrine
I pledge to maintain sound Christian doctrine, to regularly attend a confessionally evangelical and orthodox Protestant church, and to maintain a teachable spirit. I pledge to abstain from actively promoting doctrines contrary to the mission and goals of the College. I pledge to resist temptations to entertain or to encourage vain speculations and historic or contemporary doctrinal errors.

Commitment to Cultural Reformation
I pledge to nurture a reformational Christian culture in my role as a student by submitting to the lordship of Christ in all areas of my life, especially in my social activities and entertainments, my personal habits and manners, my conversation and dress, and other cultural practices.

Commitment to Academic Integrity
And I pledge to commit myself to the practice and preservation of the highest standards of academic integrity.

Violations of Student Code of Conduct
Students who are accused of or confess to egregious violations of the Student Code of Conduct will be called to appear before the Disciplinary Hearing Board, which includes two faculty members and one student representative. This Board will hear the accusation and supporting evidence, and will also hear any denial or other remarks from the accused, if any. This Board will then present a recommendation to the Dean, who will make a final determination on the matter.

Students who are found in violation of the Student Code of Conduct are subject to one of four disciplinary actions.

1. Probation. Students placed on probation are considered to be at risk of not completing their studies at New Saint Andrews College. To be removed from probationary status, students must demonstrate by their cheerful compliance and good behavior that they are capable of adhering faithfully to the standards of student conduct at the College. Failure to keep the terms of probation may result in suspension or dismissal from the College.

2. Probation with restrictions. Because of the loss of trust resulting from any Code of Conduct violation, students on probation may be subject to special restrictions or terms of accountability.

3. Suspension. Suspension is the loss of the privilege of attending classes and recitations for a fixed duration of time.

4. Dismissal. Students who have been dismissed from the College are no longer registered as students at New St. Andrews. They must reapply to return to the College. Decisions regarding probation, suspension, and dismissal rest with the Dean.

Students may appeal according to the Grievance Policy, which is set forth in the Student Handbook.

Dress Code
Students are required to attend all New Saint Andrews meetings and gatherings dressed appropriately. This includes all Seminars, Recitations, Disputatios, etc. In all respects the students must strive to have their dress be neat, clean, modest, not casual, and not outlandish. We recognize that any specific dress code can always be circumvented in effect while obeyed in the letter. Therefore we urge our students to work at reëstablishing a Christian culture, not only in our cultivation of mind, but also in our manners and appearance.

Full-time students who have successfully completed four terms of study at New Saint Andrews College must wear academic robes to Disputatio sessions and other occasions where they are called for. The robes embellish, but do not replace, the standard semiformal dress. These robes may be purchased from the College.

If the opinion of any faculty member a student is clearly violating the intent of this policy, the pattern of behavior will be discussed further with other faculty members who may then determine to include an admonition in the comment section of the student's final grades.

1 *For more information on these doctrinal errors, see Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines (Baker); Piper and Grudem, Recovering Biblical Manhood/Womanhood; Seraiah, The End of All Things (Canon Press); Beisner, Evangelical Heathenism (Canon Press); and Wilson, ed. Bound Only Once (Canon Press).