American Bible College Association StandardS

What academically qualifies a faculty member to teach in Christian colleges has been discussed here. I have opined that there is a correlation between faculty qualifications and the quality of instruction. Two emails today from Larry McKinney of AABC, who agreed to my sharing them, addressed this issue.

According to McKinney, in his first email, a college accredited by AABC would expect an applicant to have at least a masters in the subject area taught and preferably a doc.

Then I asked if degrees need be accredited ones. Mc Kinney responded in the affirmative as , he noted, the college would itself be accredited by a gov approved accreditor.

These data are applicable to the many UA Christian schools here oft discussed. Along with TRACS ,the AABC believes that having profs with accredited degrees is normally a requisite of rigorous instruction. Those who argue to the contrary go against the opinions of experts in higher Christian ed.

An "unaccredited " faculty is a redflag!

 

I agree. Interestingly, AABC requires one qualified faculty member per major, not per subject within trhe major. They prefer to have one faculty member per subject area, but it is not required.

 

I'm not sure how this works now, but in years past AABC required faculty to have a degree one level above those they were teaching. At my Bible college there was only one professor with a Doctorate, most had Master's, and a few only had Bachelor's degrees.

BLD

 

Bill,
Some good comments posted by Larry of AABC (Accrediting Association of Bible Colleges), which is now changed it's name to Association for Biblical Higher Education (http://www.gospelcom.net/aabc/Default.htm).
I wonder if the name change has to do with: 1) the fact that more and more of it's
accredited schools are heading the Christian Liberal arts direction and away from the Bible College focus, 2) it's thinking about accrediting at the graduate
level, and 3) both, neither, or a combination of many factors including the above.
I am curious about Larry's general statement about an accredited masters
degree. In Canada in AABC accredited colleges a 2 year M.A. in the field in which one will be teaching has been accepted as the minimum degree necessary, as opposed to the American Th.M. I wonder if that is because in Canada the Bible colleges have generally followed the British model and have not opted for the American style Th.M. I believe there is only one American style (4 years or one year + a M.Div.) Th.M. offered in all of Canada (Regent College of Vancouver).

 

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I should have asked Larry --shows what a lousy researcher I'd make.

Personally, ie IMO, I think a good solid MA would do nicely in many undergrad teaching assignments . At Western , RA/ATS, the instructor , a woman, for beginning Hebrew at the MDiv level had only a ThM from Western. [For the uninitiated a US ThM is FOUR years of full time grad study]. Also, for Hermeneutics at the MDiv level the guy only had a ThM from DTS. But most of my profs were ThDs from DTS or PhDs from Fuller. Curiously at the local RA Baptist College MAs teach in every subject save Bib/Theol. In Bib/Theol all have docs.

My hunch, though, is that for many job positions an applicant with an MA would be competing at a disadvantage with applicants with docs. Other things being equal I suppose the better degreed would have the better chance at being hired.

 

I had no idea the AABC was considering extending their accreditation to the graduate level. I'd like to see that happen actually. I don't know how ATS feels about it though!

 

"I had no idea the AABC was considering extending their accreditation to the graduate level."
It was discussed on this board previously, I believe with the appropriate links. If you do a search here or search the AABC website, I believe you can find info.

I stated in correctly, "I believe there is only one American style (4 years or one year + a M.Div.) Th.M. offered in all of Canada (Regent College of Vancouver, http://www.regent-college.edu/academics/)" for I afterwards remembered that TBS offers such a degree as well (http://www.tbs.edu/).