HINDU UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA. A snippet from the site: HUA is authorized, by Florida State Department of Education and the State Board of Independent Colleges and Universities, to award Masters and Doctoral degrees in following areas of Hindu Studies: · Hinduism · Hindu Philosophies · Yoga Philosophy & Meditation · Yoga Education (Master only) · Ayurvedic Sciences (Master only) · Hindu / Vedic Astrology (Master only) · Divine Music Correspondence courses include: Principles of Hinduism Basic Course in Sanskrit Practices of Hinduism Patanjali Yoga Darshan Basic Hindu Scriptures Philosophy of Shrimad Bhagavad Gita Yoga & Meditation: Principles and Practices Historical Devel. of Hinduism Universal Teachings of Hinduism Vedic Philosophy Philosophy of the Upanishads
The subject matter is certainly underserved. But I'm still skeptical of non-accredited schools. If this were a Christian theological school it would be questionable, so I guess that it's questionable when its Hindu too. This could be a great place to study for its own sake. Personally, I have an MA already and my interest in pursuing a Ph.D. is declining day by day. So non-accredited schools where I can pursue interesting and unusual subjects attract me more and more. But I don't think that any *degrees* that Hindu University of America issues would count for very much. That would change if it establishes an on-campus program and successfully approaches SACS (good luck). TRACS would be useless for a school like this, and DETC would be too unless HUA wants to drop doctorates. I suppose that it could find a niche without accreditation if Hindu groups start hiring its graduates and begin to look to this school to supply trained staff of whatever kind. This is definitely the kind of small specialized niche market where a non-accredited school could conceivably work. But if I wanted to study Hinduism seriously, I'd prefer to look to one of those English language Indian DL programs offered by a "GAAP" school, assuming I could find one and that I could enroll in it from here in the states.
If the school was up to no good, and wanted to find customers using a religious angle, setting itself up as a Christian-oriented school would seem the way to go. You have a much larger customer base here in the U.S. There was a time when Bear had a separate section in his book on religious schools. While there were some that seemed sincere, there were many who were using their religious status to run degree mills. Bear put them in a separate category because it was difficult to sort out the legal ones and the illegal ones. Almost all of them invoked some form of Christianity in their names and in their literature.
All I know is that I've fantasized for years about the idea of a Hindu university firing up in the U.S., getting DETC accreditation, and offering an M.Div. program at a decent cost by distance learning. Finding Hinduism programs overseas is hard but not impossible. There are many Aussie master's programs in Asian studies that can be tailored in this direction; most of the Indian options do seem to require that students actually be Indian citizens, but there may be some wiggle room on this. I haven't investigated very thoroughly, though I should. I do know that Gandhi's school, Gujurat Vidyapeeth, offers a distance learning Ph.D. in Gandhian thought, but I think it's limited to Indian residents. Not quite Hinduism, but a Hinduism-focused track could probably be arranged, and Gandhi was a pretty good Hindu theologian anyway, among other things. Cheers,
