Kent Gramm, a full professor of English at Wheaton College, in Illinois, is amidst two painful separations.
He and his wife are divorcing. And, because he’s choosing not to discuss the terms of that first separation with his employers — to determine whether the divorce falls within what the college considers to be appropriate Scriptural parameters — he’s resigning from Wheaton in what he calls “a mutually agreed-upon separation. And the alternative of it would be to be fired.â€
“This is sort of an additional and very significant separation. I’ve been there for 20 years. I’m very attached to the students,†Gramm says.
“There’s a considerable amount of grief, but I was aware that this would be the consequence, and I’ve been aware of this for a long time. So, in another sense, I’ve prepared myself ahead of time for this.â€
Wheaton, a non-denominational evangelical Protestant college, maintains a strong commitment to its statement of faith and community covenant, the latter a social compact based on biblical standards for Christian character and behavior. Wheaton’s long-standing policy on divorced employees stems directly from those two documents, the provost, Stan Jones, says.