Let me tell you about Lissener...

The BBQ Pit
61

The fact that the DoE acknowledges TRACS doesn’t mean other schools do, and in fact most don’t. TRACS is a religious accreditation organization and they work quite differently from academic accreditation.

TRACS accredits seminaries for certain religions. Seminaries by their definition are excluded from religious discrimination policies for obvious reasons (i.e. if FSU or Vanderbilt had a “no Jews, Muslims, or Catholics” policy they’d lose SACS accreditation in a heartbeat, but at a rabbinical college excluding Catholics and Muslims is a bit more valid as being Jewish is kind of important for a rabbi). The DoE, quite rightly, recognizes the ministry/missionary work/religion professors/etc. as a valid career and those studying it are eligible for Federal student loans, military benefits, etc., which is why Yes, the government does recognize TRACS.

People who attend a TRACS (or similarly accredited school) can apply to a SACS school (or whatever the accrediting authority is for most public and private colleges is in your region- the S in SACS is for Southern but there’s also Western, North Central, etc., and they all use pretty much the same guidelines and tiering) but said SACS school does not have to recognize their credits. If you’re applying for work in the humanities they may accept some credits (though they are under no obligation to)- English comp or some other very basic course perhaps, almost certainly no higher level courses. Apply to pharmacy or medical school with a biology or chemistry degree from BJU and you’ll be laughed at; you’re going to have to start at square one at a regionally accredited institution.

SACS and its related regional accrediting agencies are far more nationally and internationally prestigious and valuable for accreditation than religiously affiliated accrediation agencies because it means the school MUST meet certain criteria by way of core curriculum, library size, teacher:student ratio, standardized test scores of incoming and graduating students (big one), spending per student, etc… Mercer University in Macon GA {campuses in Atlanta and elsewhere as well} is a Baptist school, but they are also accredited by SACS (in addition to whatever Christian accreditation they use). By definition they teach evolution in their science classes, they are far more inclusive than most Southern Baptist churches (they have a GLBT student organization, for instance) and most importantly their credits transfer to wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy more institutions than would BJU’s or Jimmy Swaggart Bible College because their accreditation means they meet or exceed the national minimum academic standards for a university. (Mercer also has medical and legal schools that are accredited by the same agencies that would accredit the University of Georgia or UAB).

Short answer: there’s accreditation and there’s accreditation and they’re not equal.

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To the above I should add that a religiously founded institution CAN impose religious requirements or regulations on its students and still receive SACS accreditation. For example, at Mercer it is a requirement for students to attend chapel, until this century women were not allowed to wear pants, Christian prayers can be said at meetings, etc., BUT core classes themselves must be secular. A biology professor cannot teach Creationism, for example, at least not in a basic class, and a history teacher cannot teach that Islam is satanic or that Mormons are going to hell. The library (I’ve been involved in several SACS accreditations for libraries) must have access to X number of databases, contain X number of books (a ratio determined by the number of students/majors/income) and they must have a non censorship policy - I work at a small college that’s primarily health and legal so we don’t have a big religion or humanities collection, but that’s acceptable because it reflects our curriculum- if we had a “no gay authors” or “no books on non-Christian religions” then we could lose SACS accreditation).

So, the point is that a religious institution CAN be unapologetically religious and still receive secular academic accreditation. BJU and some other Christian schools constantly choose not to do so as they disavow modern educational standards (that’s not opinion but fact). Falwell’s school, Liberty University, received TRACS accreditation before it opened which raised some eyebrows. They received SACS accreditation much later but have been placed on probation several times. They have considered dropping SACS accreditation but Falwell’s an astute enough businessman to know what this would do to the number of applicants. To BJU it’s a matter of pride that they’ve never applied for SACS.

Sorry for the hijack.

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Great summary, Sampiro–thanks!

It looks as if BJU has a lot of different majors. I wonder how many have practical value?

Some of them are fascinating, such as the one for commercial pilot:

I’m guessing that the Private/Commercial Pilot Certificate are the important parts of that program,a nd that anyone can take them regardless of their university’s accreditation. Others, such as the oboe major, may not lend themselves to graduate work:

So Liberal’s conjecture about a student who is sent to BJU by default is remotely plausible: she might be a fiend for the euphonium who can’t otherwise make it to conservatory but who doesn’t buy BJU’s intolerant theology. Still, I think it’s pretty unlikely that there’s even one student at BJU in such a weird circumstance, any more than it’s likely that there’s a single college PETA member who joined the Society because their parents made it a precondition of receiving tuition.

Daniel

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An apology including a parenthetical “but I still think he’s wrong” is hardly an apology at all. Withdraw it or don’t. Anything else is a weasel.

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Busted.

And you KNOW I was thinking exactly the same thing when I wrote that post. If I’d taken my Don’t Be an Asshole pills this morning, instead I would have pointed out to Lib that, as he might remember from his tenacity in defending Chris Daughtry last year from people who didn’t like his singing as much as Lib did, it serves no one’s interests to get so dang worked up over these AI threads.

(I was still peeved over his faux apology, with appended command, that I posted with intent to cause Lib pain. Sorry Lib. )

ETA: Oops; third person above because I thought that someone else had posted that, not Lib. That being the case, please dial down the contrition level on the above paragraph, and leave only a simple apology for going too far.

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Not even sure if the part I bolded/underlined is good for a laugh or a cry. Bit of both I guess.

:rolleyes:

Anyone know if The Lord-1 is a Boeing or an Airbus?

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The line of reasoning — “Well, except they’re all alike in one particular: they fit in well enough at BJU to earn a diploma.” — is still bogus. Especially since the subject of the discussion never even earned said “diploma”. My apology was not for attacking that line of reasoning. My apology was for pitting him when all he was doing was me-tooing Diogenes. You understand that difference, don’t you Cervaise? I don’t withdraw the apology. And I don’t withdraw the advice.

68

Apology accepted. :slight_smile:

69

Well, let’s be fair, here. It hasn’t been built yet.

70

Lib, seriously, if you insist that you can’t make a reasonable assumption about a person’s religious beliefs when they attend Bob Jones University, then, seriously, you know? If your only defense of this ridiculous position boils down to “there’s an exception to every rule” and “anything–anything at all–is possible,” then basically you have no position.

If there’s ever a situation where it’s perfectly reasonable to make a general assumption about someone’s religious belief, it’s when they join a group whose religious criteria for joiniing that group are explicit and well known. One can make a reasonable assumption about a person’s religious beliefs, without knowing all there is to know about that individual, if say they join Al Qaeda. Or if they join a monastery. Or if they go to Bob Jones University. Sure, each individual in all those instances will have many, many things that make them an individual. But one thing you can reasonably assume is that all the members of those exampled groups will have a pretty clear overlap in religious beliefs.

To argue otherwise is simply, bizarrely, illogical and ridiculous

Seriously, no malice intended, you might want to give your meltdown meter a couple taps, see if the needle is stuck. Again, your illogical and defensive behavior in last year’s AI threads, immediately preceding your-self imposed hiatus, leads me to suggest this.

71

I do not disagree with that. But joining a club in order to fellowship with like minded people is not necessarily the same as enrolling in a school in order to get an education. If Chris Sligh had joined the Let’s Make Our Women Submit Club, I wouldn’t even flinch at a “that kind of Christian” comment. But that’s not what happened. In any case, since we’ve both apologized, why don’t we just move on.

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What percentage of BJU students do you really, honestly think this applies to? Is it greater than 1%?

If the admitting officers read your OP in this thread, they’d reject you as lacking reason and analytical rigor.

And if you think that Notre Dame and Bob Jones are academically equivalent institutions, you’re delusional.

Well, i said in my previous post that if someone attends BJU, then i’ll assume they’re a Bob Jones sort of Christian until i see evidence to the contrary. And, in this case, Rilchiam noted that he was dismissed from BJU precisely because he didn’t conform. For me, that constitutes evidence to the contrary.

Show me where that is an explicit condition of entry to Seattle, and i’ll concede the argument, without condition and without equivocation. Go on, i’m waiting.

Actually, what he said, exactly, was:

So, he never said that he must be, he simply made the not unreasonable assumption that he was. Which also makes your next comment…

…irrelevant.

Your combination of stupidity and self-righteousness on this issue is really quite astounding.

Because, moron, it was a weasel apology.

He apologized, yet continued to accuse lissener of doing something that lissener never did.

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No, sorry, only one of us has apologized; the other only smugly “accepted” that apology, after dishonestly offering a false apology.

And you keep saying “enrolled in a school,” as if BJU is generically interchangeable with any other school. Your bizarre denial is more and more bewildering.

74

Note to Lib: Henceforth, please try to issue false apologies honestly. It saves a lot of confusion.

75

Yeah, that were clumsy, weren’t it. I meant to suggest that it was a dishonest act, to offer this false apology, and instead I doubled up on my negatives

76

I know. I was just yankin’ your chain…in a non-trolling kind of way, of course. :slight_smile:

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I think the sane and reasonable thing to do is to figure that while there’s a chance that Sligh enrolled in BJ because it was in line with his own beliefs, it’s not without possibility that he enrolled as a naïve youth and has learned a little bit about BJ’s true nature (especially having been turfed by them). He could also have been enrolled by parents who really want him to grow up indoctrinated.

But he’s free of their clutches now and given that he’s enough of a wiseass to make the Hasselhoff remark, I suspect he may be bright enough to shed whatever BJ cooties that might have landed on him while he was there.

78

One of my first gay experiences was with a Bob Jones student, if you can imagine. I met quite a few who were there entirely because of their parents. Lib’s analogy, while amusing, is clearly off, but it’s still true that you can’t just assume. Because of my personal experience I never thought twice about Sligh being an alum there, any more than I’d expect people to assume that me being from Syracuse necessarily means I’m a psychotic vegan hick in a cult. Sure, I understand why they might just naturally think so, but still…

79

"Supportive courses in business, computers, liberal arts, and Bible are included as an integral part of the student’s preparation to serve God as a professional pilot."

Maybe Captain Kirk was wrong and God really does need a pilot.

80

STARSHIP! What he does not need is a oh crap I just failed the nerd test.