Volunteer Adjunct Lecturers Needed

This is my complaint about some countries that don't make this sort of database generally available. It is easy to make a searchable list, or even just a simple list of "accredited" schools (whatever that means in that country). [/QUOTE]

 

The ones that I'm most familiar with are Catholic or Jewish. Schools Like Boston College or Brandeis are historically religious schools but I'll bet there are a lot of people who don't think of them that way.

 

The websites are frequently uninformative when it comes to the finer points of trying to determine anything definitive. I remember being told "This school must be good because Dr. XYZ is teaching there. I'm not sure I'd see that sort of thing as a quality measure.

 

For the vast majority of religion-affiliated universities in the US, you wouldn't know it because they're usually not very distinct from non-affiliated schools.

 

It's a similar tale, I think, when it comes to alumni. Many people, particularly with religious schools, will say that school X must be good because "my pastor earned his degree from there and he's amazing."

My first encounter with Trinity Seminary (Newburgh), for example, was when I, then completely ignorant of accreditation, was considering one of their programs while in the Navy. No fewer than five of my shipmates assured me that Trinity was top shelf on the basis of a friend, pastor or family member having earned some credential from there.

At issue is that there are different levels of evaluating a school. We can look at the quality of its instruction and the academic rigor involved with study there. We can look at how well credentials from there are received by their respective industry. And we can look at the student experience.

It's very possible to have the first but not the last two. It's possible to have the last two but not the first. My point is that we simply cannot be assured of that first point without some objective measure. Accreditation, for better or worse, is the best we have in the U.S. One shelf down, I'd say, would be those states that actually regulate registered degree programs and don't let bogus schools operate. I would trust, for example, an unaccredited religious school registered in New York or, to a lesser extent, New Jersey. Beyond that, you're left with evaluating a school by its website which, to me, is a terrible idea. Is professor X really teaching there? Is professor X really good or just popular? We cannot know without that external validation.

Just recently I came across a website for a very small religious denomination that lifted pictures from an Episcopal church's website to make themselves look far more legitimate than they really are. Schools can do the same.

 

For those who don't know, we have seen cases where degree mills have pirated professors bios from other university websites without their knowledge or permission.

 

I think a lot of people have this issue where they attend a school based on the recommendation of others without really doing their due diligence. Factor in that some schools have REALLY nice websites and one can see how people get pulled in without really knowing what they are getting themselves into.

This is why I am an open supporter of programmatic accreditation. If you want a degree in education, counseling, business, etc. then I always recommend finding a program that is accredited by the best accrediting agency for that specific field.

 

I like programmatic accrediting. I do think that they should be open even to NA schools, however.

If your nursing program meets nursing program standards, then go ahead and accredit the program. The one area where I disagree with programmatic accrediting as a mandatory sort of thing is theology. There are plenty of fine ABHE schools out there. I have never experienced a TRACS accredited school, but it's clear they don't have strong ties to the web design community, but I'm sure they have a few gems in there as well. The ATS standard is not only unevenly applied but it just doesn't make sense in some contexts.

I've seen Clinical Pastoral Education programs require an ATS accredited graduate degree. Meanwhile, you can get a more research oriented ATS masters or a more ministry focused bachelors degree. It's a barrier to entry in a field that really shouldn't require arbitrary barriers to entry. IMO.

 

It is interesting that almost all (all?) programmatic accreditors require RA and will not accept NA or otherwise institutionally unaccredited schools. There is a reason, whether or not it is fair.

Programmatic accreditation is entirely focused on the academic quality of what is being delivered in the program in question. They do not assess the other aspects of operating a school that are covered by institutional accreditation. So they rely on institutional accreditors to do this. And not national accreditors, nor state agencies. They rely on regional accreditors.

One might wonder why.

 

One can speculate, of course. One could argue that it's because regional accreditors are just so much better at it and hold schools to such tighter standards that a programmatic accreditor would be foolish to do anything else.

Of course, ABET, CCNE and the AVMA (of the programmatic accreditors who have DOE and not just CHEA recognition) broke ranks and presently accredit programs at NA schools. Of the CHEA sort, IACBE also accredits non-RA schools.

The vast majority of other programmatic accreditors don't accredit non-RA schools because, frankly, there are no RA schools offering their course of study. Many of them also, while technically programmatic accreditors only, provide the only accreditation some stand alone institutions will ever possess. The American Bar Association, for example, accredits standalone law schools despite being recognized by USDOE as a programmatic accreditor only. The same can be said for programmatic accreditors of medical schools, podiatric schools, dental schools, chiropractic schools and other, similar, clinical professions. This sort of pushes out NA entirely. If a large, established university (the majority of which are RA) wishes to create a medical school then they don't need an NA at all. If a standalone professional school pops up, their programmatic accreditation is not only more important than one of the established institutional accreditors but can be had without an institutional accreditor at all. So there would be no reason to pursue NA in that case either. This of course also ignores the bulk of recognized programmatic accreditors who do, in fact, accredit programs at NA schools in vocational fields such as culinary arts, construction management and other similar areas where the programs are well represented in the NA world, typically at the smaller accreditors we seldom discuss here at the associates level and below.

Then, of course, we have recognized programmatic accreditors who refuse to accredit NA schools but have no issue with accrediting unaccredited international programs such as periodically pop up in France and Switzerland.

So I would disagree with your assertion that "almost all" programmatic accreditors require RA. Some do. Some don't. And the bulk of them are specialized accreditors which also accredit standalone institutions and whose programming is seldom offered at an NA school to begin with.

 

Bit of a necro here, but when reading through here I smiled when I saw "We do not suggest that our college is any better than any other and we are a relatively new institution" in the catalogue, minutes after reading "Our academic standards are as high as most bible colleges and seminaries and higher than some" on the homepage.

Also, "Our academic standards are high, meeting or exceeding the level of many, if not most, older accredited college and university on-line programs"

I do think there's a place for a new, unaccredited institution with real faculty to enroll students at a low price and work out the bugs. I wish there wasn't such insecurity around the concept of being unaccredited. In the US system thousands of schools that are today accredited, started as unaccredited entities.

The discussion of Pastor Larry Joe McDowell sheds some light on why he thinks this can be a one-man show though:

So:

• MS (let's say) in Computer Resources Management
• MA in Ministry
• MDiv
• Candidate for DMinn. "having completed all course requirements"
• Pursuing a PhD in Leadership with a Religious Education Concentration for over a year

So it sounds like he dropped out of the DMinn having not written the dissertation and has now started a PhD in Leadership? I wonder if the doctorate is with Regent who lists as the first benefit "

"INCREASE YOUR EARNING POTENTIAL
Capitalize on a higher salary with your Ph.D. degree."

Make an impact doesn't show up until number 3!

(As an aside, I came across an obit for a Larry Joe McDowell out of Columbiaville MI that I think is unrelated to this Larry Joe McDowell out of Birmingham, AL.)

 

We sure do. Doesn't matter where - any school that can meet program standards and that they feel has "sufficient authorization" in its own country. Any country.

Sometimes I wonder how much some of these accreditors actually know or care about what really should constitute "sufficient authorization" in places like Latvia and Kazakhstan? In France and Switzerland, I'm pretty sure they know. But do they care?

 

Which is ridiculous. An NA degree is most definitely "sufficiently authorized" if the canton schools are with the Swiss version of state approval or the unrecognized private schools in France that are, essentially, tolerated rather than approved. Just let the NA schools apply. Most wouldn't bother, I imagine. But it would definitely change the landscape.

 

So if I understand, you're saying NA isn't considered sufficient recognition by a programmatic accreditor (like ACBSP) to allow NA schools to apply for that recognition, but a Cantonal school that would be evaluated as unaccredited-but-state-approved in the US can apply for ACBSP?

 

The current dichotomy - US vs. non-US programmatic accreditation is, as you say, ridiculous. Approving qualified NA schools definitely would change the landscape - for the better, I'd think. There'd be a lot of squawking from the RA crowd, though - schools and grads both.

Yes - it can. And get it. And I think the cantonal school is commonly viewed in US as more like "unaccredited but state-licensed." State Approval was different - and a rare thing. California had it for a while. Then California changed the rules and that tier went away - then it was strictly licensing (or religious exemption, if applicable). Licensing is/was much more common in other States.

That's what I was talking about. Programmatic accreditors require RA for US schools. Overseas, it's "sufficient degree-granting authority in its own country" or similar words. And "legal" = "sufficient," it seems. I don't believe it should be.

 

I know I'm late to the game but I just read this today and I really enjoyed the ABSOLUTE FIRE in this, cut him down like a laser on a chord of firewood and I must say, very rightly-so. This was well-justified in my view, thank you!

God Bless!

 

I don't think they cut him down as much as tried to help him see what somebody outside looking at his site might see and some issues that need to be addressed.

His site is still up and it doesn't look like they were addressed. It is an extremely underwhelming and amateur site. He doesn't list where his degrees are from and I didn't see any faculty.

I don't really understand why people go for these things except that somehow they can tell their conscience that they earned a degree because it was issued by somebody else (they didn't just print it). I also wonder if some of these people have fantasies of being the next Oral Roberts or Bob Jones and building an actual University named after them. Odds are slim.

Finally, in the current market I am not sure how easy it is to justify creating new seminaries, Bible colleges, or even secular institutions unless there really is something innovative about them and qualitatively evident. University of the People developed a cool niche with faculty with accredited degrees and eventually became accredited.

Anybody can slap together a religiously exempt institution and start issuing degrees of no quality, a little use other than self-delusion, and often an embarrassment for cause they purport to hold in high esteem.

 

To continue, do we really need another school with an MBA program, Masters in Management, Doctor of Business Administration, etc. Just because you can doesn't mean it is a good idea.

How would you sell this to The Shark Tank?

 

We're 4 years later and the website looks unchanged. No progress towards accreditation that is visible.

 

Oh my, that website even has a donate link and button. I remember the early 2000's and that website is the era standard. They should've stuck with the standard WordPress + Moodle setup. Wow. Glad I checked it out now.