The president of Providence University College says that the Manitoba Christian liberal arts school will not be dropping their covenant following a highly publicized move by another Canadian school. 

In August, Trinity Western University stopped forcing their students to sign the school’s Covenant of Community Life so the school could maintain its law school's accreditation. 

Though the public response was largely favourable, Providence College President David Johnson says his school is not yet looking to follow suit.

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“We ask everyone - students, staff faculty, board - to agree to live by our covenant because we are a community and communities need some way of relating to each other,” Johnson says.

“Right now students do sign the covenant and there has been no move to take that away.”

The Supreme Court’s main concern with Trinity’s covenant had been their view on marriage as a relationship exclusively between one man and one woman which decidedly discriminated against the LGBTQ community.

In light of this, Johnson says, “Schools like Trinity and Providence want to provide a safe environment for each student and at the same time we want to maintain traditional views of sexuality and marriage and those things are sometimes at cross-purposes and they need to be thought about very carefully.”

The fact that both enrollment and funding increased after Trinity’s covenant requirement was dropped suggests to Johnson that many people appreciate the complexity of the issue.

Still, he admits that the natural tendency of all people, including institutions, is to move towards a more liberal perspective over time, which is no small worry within Christian education.

However, Johnson says, at this point in time, Providence will maintain the signing of their covenant as a requirement, while at the same time making the learning environment increasingly safe for everybody.