Posted on 08/14/2014 5:53:42 PM PDT by truthfinder9
An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education argues that accreditation ought to be denied to Christian colleges that require professors to sign statements of faith or otherwise “draw lines around what is regarded as acceptable teaching and research.” This seems like an obvious next step in the current march of secular intolerance, so I expect we’ll be hearing more arguments like this in the future:
** Why does accreditation matter? Aside from the traditional goal of conferring legitimacy on colleges and their programs, accreditation has taken on a far more consequential role: Students attending institutions that are not accredited are ineligible for federal financial aid, money that is indispensable to the budgets of most American colleges….
By awarding accreditation to religious colleges, the process confers legitimacy on institutions that systematically undermine the most fundamental purposes of higher education.
Skeptical and unfettered inquiry is the hallmark of American teaching and research. However, such inquiry cannot flourish—in many cases, cannot even survive—inside institutions that erect religious tests for truth. The contradiction is obvious….
Students giving tours at Wheaton College in Illinois are said to describe it as the Harvard of evangelical education. But unlike Harvard, Wheaton is one of the colleges that oblige their faculty members to complete faith statements. In other words, at Wheaton the primacy of reason has been abandoned by the deliberate and repeated choices of both its administration and its faculty.
Wheaton is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools…. I asked [Wheaton] to justify the manifest disconnect between the bedrock principle of academic freedom and the governing regulations that corrupt academic freedom at Wheaton…. The process administrator’s explanation, in full: "Federal regulations and commission policies require that the commission respect a wide range of institutional missions and belief systems in its accrediting processes."
This, in my view, can only be described as a scandal. Providing accreditation to colleges like Wheaton makes a mockery of whatever academic and intellectual standards the process of accreditation is supposed to uphold. If accrediting agencies are playing by the rules in this continuing fiasco, then the rules have to be changed—or interpreted more aggressively, so that "respect" for "belief systems" does not entail approving the subversion of our core academic mission by this or that species of dogma.
**
Right. Because secular colleges have no worldview dogmas whatsoever. And they never draw lines around what is regarded as acceptable teaching and research.
So in other words, no educational institution should be private, and have some rules of its own. Sounds like a Communist from a mile away.
WOW
I graduated from a Christian college..
a Baptist college at that..
Thanks for posting. I’m not surprised.
Accrediting agencies are going well beyond their proper role.Among other things, they pressure colleges to increase diversity in faculty and staff hiring and to use questionable outcomes assessments.I believe they encourage a progressive curriculum, as well.
does this include Catholic Colleges/Universities? some of the top-notch schools are Catholic...
understand what this is,
it is a money grab...at its core (whatever else may be involved)
a lot of public funds are made available now to all letimate colleges AND their students....(financial aid, etc)
these funds, or much of them anyway, could be up for grabs by the secularists under the proposal...because many funds are not given to unaccredited schools or students attending same
there are many millions of our dollars potentially at stake here .... UNLESS WE ARE GIVEN CLEAR EVIDENCE that this proposal would have no adverse effect on the ability of Christian colleges and their students to legitimately access public funds, monies we ALL (Christians, Jews, and secularists alike) pay into government.... then I would have to oppose taking away accreditation from Christian colleges
I do have to acknowledge that, except for the funding question, I believe Christian colleges need accreditation bureaucrats about as much as good dogs need fleas
(and especially since the Church had so much to do with inventing and founding so many modern-style universities in the first place!)
still, follow the money....follow the money...I do fear this may have, at its core, a money=grabbing motivation
I will be very happy to be corrected if that’s wrong... I hope it is.
solution- religious colleges create their own accrediting org.
“Christian colleges that require professors to sign statements of faith or otherwise “draw lines around what is regarded as acceptable teaching and research.”
________________________________________________
But Christians are routinely declined hiring and tenure because the libs have “drawn lines around what is regarded as acceptable teaching and research.” First the libs interview applicants and reject those who don’t shrae their liberal values as “ignorant” and then their talking heads snicker on TV while suggesting that Christians are under represented at colleges because Christians are not interested in intellectual pursuits and are intellectually “incurious.” You have to spout liberal ideology to get a foot in the door - all they are saying is “make all education liberal” and “Christians should be banned from teaching college.”
Stop accreditation for leftist colleges that ban unacceptable opinions and views too then.
Jewish colleges as well? And Muslim colleges?
If they exist I doubt the author(s) would include them
Public universities lose federal funding if they so much as mention “Intelligent Design”...
According to this model, Harvard, and other sectarian colleges of the time, should never have received accreditation.
Ah yes. harvard’s original motto was : Truth for Christ and Church — let’s yank it’s accreditation forthwith! Smile smile smile.
This wasn’t so much about accredidation as it was about using accredidation, as a protest against the “signing statement” requirement instituted by some Christian colleges (which I approve of, for obvious reasons of employer protections, in firing heretics for heretical behaviors and teachings).
What blatant hypocrisy, seeing as you would have to hunt long and hard for the 1 or 2 conservatives on any given public University campus. In fact at many of the private ones too. Conservatives are vanishing species at most liberal colleges. And ones who actually manage to get tenure are scarce as hen’s teeth.
Any others found at liberal institutions of higher learning, hide the fact that they are conservative, or claim they are libertarian, so that the guns can’t be aimed at them. I know, I worked at a liberal public University, and blessedly have been retired for a while now.
Thanks truthfinder9.
It is the Chronicle for friggin’ sake. You read one edition and you feel you’ve read a month’s worth of the NYT. What the idiot writer doesn’t realize is that accreditation is about processes and institutional controls. Teaching and learning are secondary goals.
This is a perfect example of why schools / colleges need to remove tenure. It’s obvious this person wants to worm his / her / its way into a Christian College; obtain tenure; then destroy that institution from within.
I am shocked that there is enough moral character left in this individual that falsely signing a statement of faith causes any pain.
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