Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

www.mdivs.edu/credibility.html

 

Personally I am quite concerned about the ABHE's cavalier granting of affiliate status to just about any school that applies.

Some of those granted status seem somewhat suspect to me.

Guess Russell got my dander up! Back to my studies now!

 

Which ABHE affiliate schools seem suspect, Jimmy?

 

Take a look at Southwest Bible College & Seminary, for one example.

The course loads are a joke, especially in the counseling field.

There is no mention of the faculty's degree-granting institutions nor their fields of expertise.

 

awful

I vehemently concur with Dr Clifton on MDS. A bad day at Black Rock for ABHE.

 

Re: awful

Agreed!

 

But SBCS does hold ACI accreditation, surely that counts for something...........

 

I agree that ABHE should have higher standards for its affiliate institutions. The schools that I have concerns about are Andersonville and Summit. Andersonville's two tracks seem a bit ridiculous. You can still get that budget doctorate for half the work and half the cost.

http://abhe.gospelcom.net/affiliates.htm

http://www.andersonvilleseminary.com

www.summitbiblecollege.com

 

This whole business of USDE- and/or CHEA-approved accreditors having associate/affiliate/member schools has always been troublesome to me. This ABHE thing is just one example...

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) -- arguably, when it sits atop regional accreditation, the gold standard of accreditation for MBA programs, among others -- has also been doing this sort of thing... and apparently with few minimum standards of quality for the schools which sign-up for membership therein, but which are not also accredited thereby.

One of the most egregious examples of a woefully substandard school signing-up for membership with AACSB, and then touting that in a misleading way to make people think that it's got something at least akin to accreditation is the notorious Pacific Western University (PWU)... a bogus (or, at the very least, a highly substandard) PhD from which is, at this writing, about to get an Irish public official fired (or has at least landed him in terrific hot water), as is being discussed in this thread here.

In pursuit of -- or as evidence of -- the misleading crap that PWU is doing, note that it places the AACSB logo right on its web site's front page, where it clearly hopes that those not as up on accreditation as are most of us around here will mistakenly believe that PWU has AACSB accreditation... or, at the very least, its academic blessing.

Granted, the AACSB logo used on PWU's front page clearly indicates that it's "A member of..." and that it's an "Educational Member Institution." But does the average visitor to PWU's web site know what that actually means? The average visitor to PWU's web site is not going to even know that s/he really needs to visit this page on the AACSB web site, where s/he will find that AACSB has added bright yellow highlighting to is clarifying statement thereon:

• Membership does not confer AACSB accreditation and should not be interpreted as achieving accreditation.

and so, I contend, the PWU site visitor who may know just enough about accreditation to know that AACSB is a premier USDE- and CHEA-approved accreditor of business programs may be misled by that AACSB logo there...

...just as visitors to any of the substandard seminaries that have been mentioned in this thread might be confused by said seminaries' ABHE affiliate status.

This sort of thing is not good. It's very bad, in fact. I hate it! I wish there were some way for students searching for a legitimate program -- made so by said program's accreditation by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency -- to know about this tricky little thing.

USDE/CHEA should make it policy that none of its approved accreditors may allow member/associate/affiliate schools to display the accreditor's logo on its web site, or in any of its publications, unless said logo includes the disclaimer -- in sufficiently large and bold letters that it sill be noticed -- that the school is merely a member/associate/affilite, and is not accredited. And on web sites, it should be a requirement that said logo be clickable and, when clicked upon, links to a page either on the school's web site, or on the accreditor's web site, which explains the difference.

 

I don't think that affiliate status is attained. You just pay $500 and you have access to some of the services that accredited instutiions have. Affiliate status says very little about credibility -- mostly that the school has the $500 annual dues and that administrators can fill out a simple form. Affiliation is not to be confused with accreditation nor is it a step to accreditation.

 

Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

You know that. And I know that. And now everyone who's read this thread (who didn't know it already) knows that...

...but to many others out there, it's potentially misleading in precisely the manner that I described in the post I made, above, while you were drafting yours, immediately above. That's the problem.

 

Re: Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

Well, a discerning student will surely check out things and will see this on the ABHE site:

 

Re: Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

Yup

 

Re: awful

Hey uncle janko, greetings,

Well this should answer your question into what might have happened to Masters Divinty School after that tornado the other day in Indiana, it looks like it made through alright, it got some type of recognition from ABHE.

And all you guys thought Masters would never amount to anything; shame, shame, shame on you guys!

 

Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

Keep in mind the original thread stated that ABHE affiliate status was obtained, not attained.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

If most students were discerning, DegreeInfo would have a third fewer members and posts; and virtually no vigilance on any of our parts with respect to diploma mills and others nefarious would be necessary.

If most Americans were discerning, we wouldn't need half the protect-people-from-themselves kinds of laws; no consumer protection divisions in state attorney generals' offices; etc.

We have laws that don't allow advertisers to mislead for precisely the reason that most Americans are not particularly discerning. Heck, all you have to do is take a look at the most popular shows on TV to know that!

For purposes of misleading potential students; for purposes giving them the false impression that MDIVS has some kind of approval -- maybe even accreditation in the minds of those who don't know the difference -- from a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved accreditor, it matters not whether it's "ob" or "at".

I'm not completely sold on Trinity Newburgh quite yet, Russell; and I hear and respect those who so vehemently criticize it; but I cannot ignore that it's about to be regionally accredited. If that's the so-called "gold standard" around here, then it has to be that for every regionally-accredited institution, not just the ones whose accreditation pleases us. So I might (and the operative word, there, is "might") be willing to stand back-to-back with you and fend-off all comers who step forward against Trinity...

...but with MDIVS, you lose me. It's a joke... even with its obtained ABHE affiliate status. When and if ABHE actually accredits it, then maybe I'll sing a different tune. But until then, it's every bit as bad as Janko, et al, have always said; and neither wishing, nor ABHE affiliation, will change that.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

I agree, Gregg! Many of the schools that have ATTAINED this STATUS flash the ABHE logo on their websites and suggest that it is an endorsement from the DOE. A lot of people aren't discerning enough to realize that affiliation is NOT accreditation. This really is a bad practice by the accreditation boards.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

The joke here is that you apparently think this thread was begun as an endorsement on my part of MDS. A brief review of my posting history reveals not one endorsement of a mill. The thread was begun with a statement of fact, i.e., that MDS had recently attained ABHE affiliate status, knowing that the thread would produce some interesting feedback. And of course it has!

My distinction between attain and obtain is based on the following Webster definitions:

Attain: "to come into possession of something."
Obtain: "to be generally recognized."

As it relates to ABHE affiliate status, I see a distinction between the two. One can certainly come into possession of affiliate status, and yet not be generally recognized.

 

Re: Re: Masters Divinity School Obtains ABHE Affiliate Institution Status

Thanks for posting that. I was about to ask what ABHE affiliate status means and about how it's obtained.

The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) has an affiliate status. That one isn't accreditation either and most of the affiliate institutions aren't degree-granting entities. (Many of them are the clergy-formation branches of mainstream religious denominations or professional organizations for clergymen.) But ATS affiliate status does require a two-thirds vote of the membership, so it's a vote of confidence.

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21942

I agree that accreditors shouldn't allow affiliate schools to publicize their affiliate status in any way that might confuse prospective students about the school's accreditation status.

 

pop goes the weasel

Bill, you make an important distinction here, since the ATS affiliate institutions are mostly something other than degree-granting schools, being instead other organizations or institutions concerned with theological education. The "you say attato, I say obtahto" business above is evanescent. What is not evanescent is the easy abuse of this spectator status with an accreditor to fool those who are uninformed about the technical language of accreditation--which is almost everybody (not unreasonably, too). Also, ATS is the "gold standard" in theological school accreditation; ABHE is maybe the aluminium standard--though it's acting like the bubblepak standard just now.