Does University of the Cumberlands require religious activities of its students?

I'm considering attending University of the Cumberlands on-line, as I found a teaching program that fits my needs and the price is affordable.

I recently met some students who attended another Christian school. They were required to take some religious courses and all students were expected to be Christians. Also, even though their major was also teaching, their professors seemed not so concerned about helping them to become good teachers, but to instead to help them learn how to mix religious teaching into their public school lessons.

Does anyone know what I can expect from University of the Cumberlands?

 

I can't speak for your specific program, but I can tell you there's nothing of the sort in their PhD in Leadership program. My courses have been no different than any courses I've taken at public institutions. Religion really doesn't come up at all.

-Matt

 

I've had the same experience as Matt, in both the Leadership specific courses and the psychology courses in their doctoral program (which I'm taking for my AoS for the Leadership program). Religion has come up as a tangent in a few of my courses through student's discussion their own views of the material, but it's not something that has been 'pushed' in the course work.

 

The 2014-2015 University of the Cumberlands Student Handbook includes a number of restrictions on student behavior (both on-campus and off-campus) that some might find intrusive. These include bans on alcohol (even when legal), excessive displays of affection, premarital sex, homosexuality, gambling, obscene language, and obscene literature, pictures, clothing, music, and movies.

It seems likely that these restrictions primarily target the traditional residential students, although this is not stated explicitly in the Handbook. In practice, it's hard to see how they could be effectively enforced on distance students. Note that Cumberlands students may not be in a position to comment candidly in this forum about these restrictions, because the administration is fully prepared to dismiss students and faculty for their postings on non-University websites. This attitude has cost them millions in public funding, and has put them on the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) list of Censured Institutions for lack of academic freedom.

 

For what it's worth, my undergraduate institution, which was a traditional brick and mortar public university, had some similar rules. We couldn't drink on campus, even if we were 21. We couldn't have sex in the dorms. Heck, we couldn't even have members of the opposite sex in our rooms past quiet hours. We didn't really have a social media policy, though, since, you know, sites like Facebook didn't exist yet.

-Matt

 

I explicitly referenced the current edition of the Cumberlands Student Handbook, for the 2014-2015 academic year. The restrictions that I cited are not "from nearly a decade ago".

Furthermore, Cumberlands remains on the current AAUP "Censured Institutions" list, even though the events that put them on the list happened in 2003-2004. This is because they have continually refused to even reply to AAUP's requests to discuss the matter:

I will acknowledge that the expulsion of the gay student occurred in 2006. However, I see no obvious reason to believe that the school has become more accepting or tolerant of gay students since then. I am prepared to consider evidence to the contrary, if you have any.

 

And did these restrictions apply to off-campus activity, which (as I noted) the Cumberlands rules do?
Or was it OK to (for example) order a beer at an off-campus restaurant, if you were 21?

 

Look, the President of Cumberlands has been quoted as follows: "University of the Cumberlands isn't for everyone." And I think that's true. For example, it is not a school that I personally would care to attend, or put on my resume. And they probably wouldn't want me as a student either. I'm sure that Cumberlands is a better match for other people, and that's OK.

But in order to make an informed decision, prospective students deserve to know why this school might not be for everyone. Does that seem reasonable?

 

Why would that not be a school to put on a resume?

 

As long as you don't join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, you will be fine.:wiggle:

 

For entirely personal reasons, which do not necessarily apply to you. As should be evident, I don't agree with some of their academic policies, and so I would not want my resume to be potentially identified with those policies.

I readily acknowledge that University of the Cumberlands has full regional accreditation. Furthermore, I'm sure that many people are proud to put Cumberlands degrees on their resumes, and I'm sure that those degrees have helped many of their former students. It could be a perfectly good school for your resume -- just not mine.

 

I feel the same way. I wouldn't attend the school out of principle, but I respect that not everyone's values align with mine and that they wouldn't have a problem with this school's policies and recent history.

 

Some of them, yes. Not the beer or sex rules, however. We did have a frat lose its charter because it violated campus rules during off campus activities.

As I stated, CNU was a public school. Cumberlands is a private religiously affiliated school. If a student doesn't think he or she can follow the rules set forth by the school, he or she shouldn't go there. Then again, that applies to ALL schools. I'm a rule follower, so it doesn't bother me too much. I didn't choose the school for it's policies anyway. I chose it for the program, which is a great affordable one at that.

-Matt

 

It’s clear that Cumberlands has some unusually strict expectations about student behavior. These include, for example, bans on alcohol (even when legal), “obscene” materials (and I suspect that “obscene” is defined broadly), and sex outside of marriage (even off-campus).

Since degreeinfo is a distance learning forum, this raises an obvious question: what (if anything) do these rules mean for Cumberlands DL students? For example, is it OK for a student in a Cumberlands distance program to drink beer, read Henry Miller novels, or engage in pre-marital sex ?

My guess (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that the Cumberlands administration would disapprove of such behavior among their students, regardless of whether they studied on-campus or by DL. But as a practical matter, it seems like the rules would be difficult to enforce in the case of distance students. So my assumption (again, correct me if I’m wrong) is that a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation is in effect. As long as no one asks and no one tells, then everything is cool.

And that is why I don’t expect Cumberlands distance students to "comment candidly in this forum about these restrictions". I’m not asking, for example, if you drink beer in spite of the rules. So don’t tell.

 

legal v. immoral

Societal mores have rapidly changed in just one generation. As an example: When many conservative or religious colleges and universities were first created, homosexual acts were illegal (and arrestable) in many states, which conformed with religious prohibitions. However, homosexual acts are now legal in many states (look at state sanctioned civil unions as an example), even if it remains prohibited by conservative or religious colleges and universities. Thus, many things that were once illegal are now legal, but nonetheless they remain prohibited (and considered immoral) by many private institutional belief systems.