Fairfax University and Lord Perry

I note that the Fairfax University website (fairfaxu.edu) lists Lord Perry of Walton as their Chancellor. As the moving force behind Britain's Open University and its Vice Chancellor for many years, there is probably no more respectable and bigger name in the world of distance education.

And yet, the Fairfax "campus" is a mailing service in Louisiana.

And yet, Fairfax could not qualify even for Louisiana's provisional licensing, since DETC would not accept their application. But Louisiana still cannot regular purely religious schools.

And yet, Fairfax claims its non-religious operations are in Montana and South Dakota, where they have also rented mailboxes, and where the new South Dakota law and the newly-enforced Montana law would seem to preclude their operation.

And yet, Fairfax is apparently run from England (where it has not been approved) by its president, Alan Jones.

I have felt, ever since my brief involvement in 1986, that Fairfax has been beyond reproach academically. But, my goodness, they do seem to me to be in front of reproach, if that be the opposite, with regard to how they operate in terms of licensing and so forth.

 

Fairfax has long seemed to be a mixed bag. It appears to have a very coherent academic program and good faculty, as well as high standards both in quality and quantity in regard to dissertation and thesis requirements. Perhaps Fairfax is one of those rare schools that could function well, and serve a particular body of students well, without accreditation. So many schools fall into problems because of an on-again, off-again, haphazard, and generally indecisive policy toward accreditation, or by trying to set up some kind of lame end-run around the whole accreditation issue. I would imagine that if one were ever to be involved in founding a school, it would be very wise to decide at the outset whether they plan to seek accreditation or not. If not, the institutional literature from the outset should explain why the school's philosophical, pedagogical, or religious distinctives are incompatible with the kind of external authority that accreditation represents. Then, that once said, it should never change its stance. I think here of two schools--Bob Jones and Pensacola Christian--that did exactly that for religious reasons, and both have experienced very few problems. I think problems begin when a school starts trying to find easy or fast--or cheap--ways to become accredited, or rather to pass for being accredited. Thus we see Fairfax claiming at least four locations of operation. Far worse than not having accreditation, is presenting the public with mixed information, changing policy, uncertain claims, excuses, semi-truths, and an unclear future as far as accreditation is concerned. Inauthentic accreditation makes no sense at al. I would much rather have none. lAt least that is my opinion.

Thanks,

Craig

 

Uh...sorry. I see one very little, um, problem with my logic or at least my analogy here. Fairfax is a distance ONLY school, and Both Bob Jones and Pensacola Christian are very much brick and, I think...brick schools. In fact PCU has as nice a physical plant as any school I have ever seen. The campus of BJU is, ah, interesting to say the least. (The BJU campus is a story and urban legend unto itself.) Both BJU and PCU are fairly conservative in the amount of DL learning they will incorporate into a degree program. BJU must be at least 75 years old, just that fact is going to help make up for their lack of accreditation, in other words the school pretty much pre-dates accreditation itself.
I do still maintain, though, that most of their success in remaining unaccredited is that they both have philosophically opposed accreditation on fairly reasonable grounds since the day they opened their doors. And that's what I think and I'm sticking with it.

From California, that bastion of critical thinking,
Craig