New President of Louisiana's Southern Baptist Convention (PhD, LBU)

From the Louisiana Baptist University website:

LBU Alumni elected President of the Louisiana Baptist Convention:

Dr. Bill Robertson was elected as the new President of the Louisiana Baptist Convention. The 158th annual meeting of the Louisiana Baptist Convention was held at the First Baptist Church in West Monroe, La. on November 14 -15. Dr. Robertson was elected with a 59.5 percent vote. He is the Pastor of the Temple Baptist Church in Winnsboro, Louisiana. He received both his Masters and Doctor of Philosophy degree from LBU. Congratulations Dr. Robertson! We will pray for you as you lead Southern Baptists in the state of Louisiana.

www.lbc.org/lbc/welcome_1.nsf/pages/annualmeeting

 

Is the LA Baptist Convention an SBC thing or is that some sort of Independent Baptist group?

I read a number of religious pages on the net and have run across discussion on Baptist boards. Most often, the discussion around LBU centers around a guy out in California that ran for some office. Inevitably, LBU gets brought into the discussion as a mill. I'm not saying it is a mill, though. The non-creationists do bring it up a lot.

 

"About the Louisiana Baptist Convention

The LBC is a statewide association of Baptist churches connected through a common mission.
The Louisiana Baptist Convention has almost 1,800 churches. The LBC state offices are located at 1250 MacArthur Drive, Alexandria, Louisiana. Our churches minister both separately and cooperatively to reach our common goals.

The LBC churches are connected with more than 40,000 other Southern Baptist Churches in ministry nationally. This is a voluntary network throughout the United States with ministry worldwide in more than 105 countries. "

 

Are they or will they apply or achieve recognized accreditation?

Learner

 

Russell, you have one of the most honest and unpretentious signatures here at DegreeInfo. Many of us can learn a lot from you.

 

Re: Re: New President of Louisiana's Southern Baptist Convention (PhD, LBU)

Most, if not all, schools have a few alumni who not serve well in the institution's PR department.........

 

And I am very proud of my PowerPoint certificate, miguel..............

 

If they are successfully getting students then maybe they don't even have to bother with it. What they have may seem fine to them.

They have said that they had people from an accrediting agency look over their school and said it looked OK...Or something along those lines.

 

From their website

"ACADEMIC REVIEW

Louisiana Baptist University was founded with the express purpose of providing a quality education in a Christian atmosphere. Our main emphasis is to train our students to serve in meaningful positions within the Christian community. Louisiana Baptist, on the basis of its academic standards, financial stability and extensive curriculum, is comparable to many accredited universities. However, as a primarily religious institution, LBU has not sought either regional or national accreditation by a secular accrediting agency. Because of our strong stance on inspiration of the scriptures, doctrinal purity and pre-millennialism many of our administration and faculty hold terminal degrees from LBU. However, they also hold over 90 different degrees from other colleges and universities.

LBU is one of six approved schools of the Baptist Bible Fellowship International. The BBFI is a fellowship of over 4,000 churches. As an approved school LBU is reviewed three times a year by the National Board of Directors of the BBFI.

To better meet the academic and professional development needs of the student, LBU continually seeks to improve the quality of the institution. For this reason, LBU is semi-annually examined by an independent review committee comprised of ministers and educators.

The 2004 academic reviews:

Dr. Harold Ledford
Director of Development and Continuing Education
Louisiana State University, Shreveport, Louisiana

In reviewing the Christian Education department of Louisiana Baptist University, I find that it meets the national norms in all areas that I reviewed. Many of the education textbooks are the same as the ones used at Louisiana State University and other major universities. The study guides reinforce and supplement the learning experience. Each course requires several research papers and a comprehensive final test. The university also offers several seminars and workshops each year so that students can interact with the faculty and compliment their self-study. The university has a staff of well-qualified advisors that can be reached five days a week by phone, fax or e-mail.

As a pioneer in distance education the university has had time to develop a delivery system that is extremely student friendly and effective. The learning process and degree requirements compare favorably with those of other teacher colleges or state universities.

Dr. John Steffens
Vice Provost
University of Oklahoma

My overall assessment of Louisiana Baptist University is very good. The course offerings clearly meet national norms. The study guides are well designed and are augmented with additional required research papers. The final test is administered under the direction of a proctor in order to insure academic integrity. Students have easy access to qualified instructors through phone, fax or e-mail. It is the intent of the university to offer an academically sound education in a Christian environment, clearly they are succeeding.

Dr. Richard Thompson
Director of Vocation Education
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

I first reviewed Louisiana Baptist University in May of 1993, when I was Director of the Bureau of Student Services of the Louisiana Department of Education. I was impressed with the quality of their program and with their enthusiasm and dedication to excellence. I indicated at that time that I thought LBU had great possibilities.

In the 10 years since, the university has improved its facilities, increased its course offering, hired additional professionals and quadrupled its student body while maintaining that enthusiasm and dedication to excellence."

 

Translation: take our word for it. It might be true, I don't know. But that's just the point, I don't know. And neither does anyone else who isn't already personally familiar with this school.

Other highly sectarian schools have successfully sought accreditation.

Translation: our faculty is too inbred. I can understand inbreeding in some cases. It can happen when schools are so unique and one-of-a-kind that they are essentially the only place teaching their subject. Is LBU that unique?

Well, that does define a niche that will probably be favorably predisposed to recognize LBU graduates. But it also makes the inbreeding more problematic.

Wait a minute. LBU rejects the idea of submitting to secular (eww) accreditation. So why are they trotting out a list of educators to endorse the school, calling them an "independent review committee", and listing their secular positions to buttress their credibility? How is that different than submitting to accreditation? Is it because the "independent" reviewers are hand chosen by LBU?

LBU obviously wants to have it both ways.

I'm not trying to trash LBU here. It might be one of the best of the non-accredited religious schools. It might be a fine educational choice for individuals that are comfortable with its limitations. I don't know.

But I'm unmoved by its rhetoric.

 

Understood Bill,
I absolutely understand that LBU has too many grads from its own programs to ever be considered for DETC, RA, probably TRACS.....
this was posted as more of an information piece in response to what Bing said....it is what it is. They must feel like it works for them..they have grown from 100 students to over 1100 now. That does not reflect on the quality any skeptic would justifiably argue, and my anecdotal affirmation to the quality of it will not sway anyone I realize. It works for me though.
BrianH

 

I have a good friend who has several degrees from RA schools and a Th.D. from LBU. He attests to LBU's comprehensive, intensive, and rigorous programs.

Also, what you said is how unaccredited schools (not mills) should be viewed: If it works for the student and will not hinder future employment, licensure, credentials, ordination, etc., and, if it offers substantial, rigorous programs, fine!

 

12 of my hours from WSU are doctoral level courses...I can attest to all three adjectives your friend used
BH

 

The LBU catalog (p. 18) discusses LBU's policies for accepting transfer credits.

- If a student previously attended an RA or NA institution, then LBU will "transfer credit for appropriate courses."

- But if a student previously attended an unaccredited institution, then LBU will "consider" transferring the credits, after a "careful evaluation is completed"; furthermore, "the student is generally accepted on probation, requiring a 2.8 minimum GPA for the first 15 credit hours attempted at Louisiana Baptist University".

If unaccredited coursework from other schools is academically suspect -- and LBU obviously thinks that it is -- then what about unaccredited coursework from LBU itself ?

 

POSSIBILITIES

That their classes would hold up well "after a careful evaluation" is completed by other schools.
or
That not all unaccredited schools have good standards
or
They do not assume that all unaccredited schools are subpar and are willing to consider coursework from some of them
or
LBU recognizes that RA and NA schools have an established means of determining quality and that they accept those standards,
or
it sounds like a very reasonable standard for an unaccredited school....................................


BH

 

After earning several degrees in pastoral ministry from RA institutions [BA degree from an RA university; MA('92) & DMin('96) degrees from RA/ATS seminaries], I then completed a PhD('04) in practical theology via LBU. Each course in my degree program required reading the text(s), completing a study guide, writing several papers and taking a proctored final exam. The RA/ATS DMin was earned 100% via classroom, reading, research and writing assignments--NO Exams. I invested much more time, research and energy in completing the LBU dissertation than the DMin dissertation. Of course, a PhD dissertation is more research oriented than its DMin counterpart. The LBU route was certainly no millish experience, however, my field of study has been primarily practical theology.

 

We should also remember that Charles Stanley was President of the SBC on two ocassions.

He is a graduate of Luther Rice Seminary.

He graduated prior to their TRACS accreditation.

On a sad note, Dr. Adrian Rogers, three-time president of the SBC, died November 15, 2005.

I heard him preach a few times and he was excellent.

 

I got soured on Stanley after his divorce. To me, it's not a fitting thing for a Pastor. I'll take The Old Trailblazer over him.

BTW, Jimmy, my Dad took the Foley course for saw sharpening about 30 years back. It's been a nice side job in his retirement. His course included all the equipment, too. Expensive but it has earned him his money back many times over and then some. I think Bear is having some fun with Foley on the other forum.

Bing

 

That's what I wanted to say
Most likely trying to say the same would mest up and had flames from the gang.

I agree 100%

Learner

 

Alternative possibilities, which you apparently overlooked:

1. Unaccredited LBU degrees will be regarded as potentially subpar by employers, government agencies, and other universities -- just as LBU regards other unaccredited programs as potentially subpar.

2. Sadly, these other evaluators may not have the time, skills, or inclination to conduct "careful evaluations" of LBU's degree programs, or to accept LBU applicants on a "probationary" basis.

3. These other evaluators may therefore automatically disqualify applicants from LBU or other unaccredited schools, in favor of applicants from RA or NA schools with well-established degree standards.

These seem like reasonable standards for those who must evaluate many degreed applicants. And they are commonly applied in practice.