Young Life Leaves Meredith College

Photo by Olivia Slack

Meredith’s chapter of Young Life has officially moved off campus. This comes after allegations of anti-LGBTQIA+ policies prompted a formal investigation by the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate. The SGA Senate branch issued the following statement to The Herald:

“The Senate Organization Concerns Committee received and began review of a reported concern regarding the Young Life student organization at Meredith. The Young Life student organization has informed [the] Senate of their decision to no longer operate as a Meredith organization [and] is no longer an active Meredith student club as of late spring semester 2021. Senate is unable to speak to the details of its review of the concern or its discussions with the Meredith Young Life student organization.”

Meredith’s Young Life chapter was organized through Young Life College, a branch of the organization that focuses on college campus outreach. Though various colleges and universities have chapters on campus with their own meetings, Young Life does offer general events that students from any campus can attend. Their website for the Raleigh chapter explains that their meetings are open to students who attend colleges and universities in the surrounding area, including NC State, Meredith, St. Augustine University, Shaw University, William Peace University and Wake Technical Community College. Young Life College at NC State did not respond to The Herald’s request for comment about Young Life’s decision to move off of Meredith’s campus.

In addition to the Young Life investigation, the SGA Senate wants to ensure students that there is a process in place to deal with future complaints against current organizations, saying, “Senate encourages any Meredith community member who wishes to report a concern regarding a Meredith student organization to do so using the Organization Concerns Reporting form available on the SLS MyMeredith webpage, under the Engage subpage of the website. A link to the concerns reporting form is available here.”

Correction: The original version of this story named Chris Cockerham as the Young Life College Director at NC State; however, The Herald has received information that he now works at Young Life in another capacity. While Justin Hepler and Teej Edwards are the current staff at Young Life College in Raleigh, The Herald reached out to Young Life College NC State's general email and received no response.

By Aminah Jenkins, Associate Editor