Arizona's "Astrological Institute" accredited.

The Astrological Institute, Inc. ("Teaching Comprehensive Astrology For Todays World!"), http://www.primenet.com/~astroin/, of Scottsdale, Arizona, has been accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology. This may not be a "distance education" school, but I thought that people who missed today's AP story would want to hear about this. ACCSCT accreditation must be incredibly worthless if they'll accredit this.

Anyway, I find the end of the AP article especially amusing:

"Scientists scoff at the pursuit.

"Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist who heads the Hayden Planetarium in New York, noted astrology was discredited 600 years ago with the birth of modern science. 'To teach it as though you are contributing to the fundamental knowledge of an informed electorate is astonishing in this, the 21st century,' he said.

"Education should be about knowing how to think, Tyson said. 'And part of knowing how to think is knowing how the laws of nature shape the world around us. Without that knowledge, without that capacity to think, you can easily become a victim of people who seek to take advantage of you.'

"Jensen is familiar with such criticism. 'It's quite obvious that he hasn't studied the subject,' she said."

 

Here's what was in the San Francisco papers, by way of comment:

Fully Accredited Complete Fluff
The stars were favorably aligned this month for the Astrological Institute,
says founder Joyce Jensen, whose students learn to write horoscopes and give
advice about the future. The modest school in suburban Phoenix won
accreditation from a federally recognized body, a first for a school of
astrology. Now the institute can seek approval from the U.S. Education
Department for its students to get federal grants and loans. "Jupiter just
entered my house of making my Beemer payments and scamming government loans
to support my patchouli 'n' Demerol habit!" Jensen might've said,
excitedly. "Kiss my Capricorn ascendant, Rob Brezny!"

 

is ACCSCT accreditation worth anything in the academic world?(in terms of accepting one for admittance to an undergrad program?) what about in for employment?

------------------
Sam C
www.uci.edu
UCI 2002
[email protected]
Confusion is just the path to insight and knowledge

 

I saw the AP story in this morning's newspaper and my first impression was that the writer did not have a clue. Notwithstanding that the school does not have a significant accreditation, they are hardly the first astrology program to be accredited.

Old-timers in the field will remember that the regionally accredited JFK University in the Bay Area offered a bachelor's degree program in psychology several years ago. Not to mention Atlantic University in Virgnia Beach, which focuses on the out-in-left-field teachings of Edgar Cayce and is accredited by DETC. (No comments from the peanut gallery . . .)

Moreover, I know a person who earned her M.A. degree in astrology from my master's alma mater, Vermont College of Norwich University. She was hip enough to call her major "depth psychology," but it was a master's degree in astrology nonetheless.

Thus, I would best describe the AP story as "non-news," but a brilliant P.R. strategy on the part of the school's owner.

 

ACCSCT is a US Department of Education recognized accreditor that specializes in vocational-type subjects at the bachelors, associate and sub-degree level. They accredit schools like the Art Institute of Los Angeles and Northrup-Rice Aviation Inst. of Tech.

Some of their schools are even rather prestigious like the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco.

I guess the reception of these schools by employers is like that of other vocational schools, riding to a large degree on the reputation of the school itself. But I think that ACCSCT accreditation does add a big dose of credibility, ensuring that a school does in fact teach what it says it teaches to an acceptable standard and is not a scam.

As to its reception by academics, I don't think that's really its intent. One attends the California Culinary Academy primarily to become a chef, not to get into a doctoral program. I guess that these credits would get the same kind of reception as DETC or ACICS credits.

Or AABC credits...

 

Hunh. I'd have thought that Astrology would be considered a religious activity, an expression of what I suppose is paganism.
Nosborne

 

In that both are superstitions, I can understand the comparison. However, one involves the unsupported notion of a deity while the other an unsupported notion of personality diagnoses and predictions of the future. I am not an adherent to either one(knock wood).

Rich Douglas

 

I'm not entirely convinced that ACCSCT has accredited anything called the 'Astrological Institute'. There is no record of this school in their directory.

As to whether an astrological school is a religious school, that depends on one's definition of religion I guess. Astrology certainly seems to lack most features that one usually associates with a religion.

As to whether an astrological school is a vocational school, I supppose that if it prepares people for positions as professional astrologers it could be called that.

As to whether astrology is an acceptable subject for an accredited school to teach, I'm less comfortable. I don't believe in astrology myself, though it interests me greatly from a history of ideas standpoint. I think that it is a fine (and too often ignored) subject for scholarly scrutiny.

But that isn't the same thing as training practitioners who are committed to its tenents. Is that respectable enough to justify accreditation? Must an accreditor believe in what is being taught, or is it enough that what is being taught is being taught well?

Let me be blunt here. I am not a Christian. I personally think that it is utterly ridiculous to assume that some book is the unique and verbally inerrant revelation of God. (Though again it is important from a history of ideas standpoint.) I find it chilling when a college announces that the Bible is authoritative on all aspects of life. I find it appalling when those colleges announce that no possible evidence or argument can be accepted which is contradicted by scripture.

Well, here's a list of colleges that have agreed to those principles, who teach a literal six-day creation and all the rest. They range from mills, through Bob Jones and Pensacola, to some RA schools like Regent, Master's and Christian Heritage.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/colleges.asp

So, how should a guy like me respond to this? Suppose that I were on an accrediting commission. Should I vote 'No' on conservative Christian colleges on principle? I mean, how could a legitimate educational institution or a self-respecting scholar believe this stuff?

Or should I take the route of academic freedom? Should I accept the existence of content that I personally disagree with so long as a candidate school meets its stated academic goals at a level expected of accredited schools in other fields?

Should the accreditor be allowed to become the gate-keeper, deciding what kind of content is acceptable in higher eduction?

 

Once again, I second Bill on every point. I don't see anything at all wrong with accreditation of an astrology school, and I would be surprised to learn that the Astrological Institute is the first such school to gain recognized accreditation.




Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Two issues, really! I disagree concerning Bill's worldview relative to Christianity, however, we can certainly agree to disagree and remain DL colleagues. I do agree with Bill's view on astrology as a discipline.

Secular accreditors (RA), IMO, should not be the "gate-keepers" in terms of content. The accreditor's responsibility should be to confirm/validate a schools adherence to RA academic policies. If a school of astrology meets the criteria for accreditation, then it warrants the right to be accredited alongside schools of medicine, religion, education or any other field of study/practice. [Or at least thats what my fortune cookie said last night at China Palace. ]

Russell

 

So do I, technically (though whether I'm a Christian or not depends on who's giving the Rorschach at the time ). But I think those of us who do belong to a religious faith can learn a great deal from those of us who don't; I've been reading Thomas Merton's early journals, and it's beginning to look as if it was Albert Camus's books that made a sincere contemplative out of him, and the faint echo of existentialism was present in everything he wrote from then on. I tend to look at Gethsemane as the real defining motif of Christianity--the moment, in other words, when God became an agnostic.

Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

I don't see how religious studies actually differs from hard science in this respect. If you look at the models of matter from the pre-Socratics to Boyle, and to this very day, you'll see a constant stream of theory replacement. What were the gatekeepers doing as one generation of physicists usurped the previous? Don't even go there in the medical/biological arts; until this century, one may have been safer without a physician than with.

Obviously, gatekeepers would have to be better scholars than the scholars they monitored to make a decision about the "correctness" and value of the subject matter.

 

Hmmm. Why should academia recognize Christian theology as a legitimate discipline but reject other religious concepts like paganism? Maybe it's because Christian theology gives the impression that it is making progress in its inquiries? (speculations?) Theology is a systematic study, I think, more like biology maybe than Modern Art (not that I know the least bit about either biology OR Modern Art!)

Jews in general haven't created much theology. Jewish study is mostly law and language, carrying along a good bit of history. Well, and some music and a few mystics. On the whole, though, Jews owe most of what passes for theology to the great Christian thinkers.

How's this? While it is extremely difficult to DISPROVE a Christian conclusion, it is INEVITABLE that the astrologer will be found to be simply WRONG most of the time.

Nosborne

 

Notion of deity may be unprovable (what is?) but hardly unsupportable.

I once saw William Lane Craig brutally destroy an atheist philosopher in a debate... very sad really, if it was a boxing match it would have been called in the 3rd round.

 

But that isn't the same thing as training practitioners who are committed to its tenents. Is that respectable enough to justify accreditation? Must an accreditor believe in what is being taught, or is it enough that what is being taught is being taught well?

Every field of inquiry begins with primary assumptions (faith statements if you will). From those faith statements a scholarly exercise may be undertaken. I do not believe an accreditor needs to ascribe to the faith assumptions in order to accredit. However how about schools which are nothing more than faith statements? (i.e. schools of indoctrination without any true scholarly inquiry). I think accreditors can ensure that a school is engaged in scholarly inquiry.


Let me be blunt here. I am not a Christian. I personally think that it is utterly ridiculous to assume that some book is the unique and verbally inerrant revelation of God. (Though again it is important from a history of ideas standpoint.)

Actually that is largely a recent and fundamentalist interpretation... many Christians don't adhere to that statement.

I find it chilling when a college announces that the Bible is authoritative on all aspects of life. I find it appalling when those colleges announce that no possible evidence or argument can be accepted which is contradicted by scripture.

Well, here's a list of colleges that have agreed to those principles, who teach a literal six-day creation and all the rest. They range from mills, through Bob Jones and Pensacola, to some RA schools like Regent, Master's and Christian Heritage.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/colleges.asp

So, how should a guy like me respond to this? Suppose that I were on an accrediting commission. Should I vote 'No' on conservative Christian colleges on principle? I mean, how could a legitimate educational institution or a self-respecting scholar believe this stuff?

How could a self-respecting scholar beleive there is no God, how could a self-respecting student believe you can obtain a legitimate degree in 4 weeks... faith takes many forms.

Or should I take the route of academic freedom? Should I accept the existence of content that I personally disagree with so long as a candidate school meets its stated academic goals at a level expected of accredited schools in other fields?

The problem with this is that you loose any meaning to what a degree is. If a school states its goals, almost any goal will do, and effectively meets those goals... does this mean you can earn a "degree"... what does this mean?

Should the accreditor be allowed to become the gate-keeper, deciding what kind of content is acceptable in higher eduction?

IMO, definetly. If not credentials will lose all meaning. That is where perhaps alternative accreditors come in... to "accredit" schools who offer different programs but which are not academic in a traditional sense.

PS. I always thought that, according to some of your posts, you were going to burn in Hell.



[/B][/QUOTE]

 

So as we being to stretch the fabric of accreditation wider and wider... to 4 week BAs, to Astrology, to institutes of indoctrination... what exactly does accreditation mean?

 

Agreed, but what serious Jewish theologians do produce tends to be vastly influential; some of the most high-quality theology of the 20th century was produced by Jewish thinkers--Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, Rachel Elior, Max Kadushin, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Mordecai Kaplan, Nahum Glatzer, Rami Shapiro, Arthur A. Cohen, Harold Schulweis, Maurice Friedman, and Adin Steinsaltz have all informed my personal theology directly or indirectly (especially Buber and Heschel, without whom I would probably have no worthwhile personal theology), and no single Christian Bible commentator is even in the running with Rashi when it comes to comprehensiveness, nor can any system of Christian canon law even remotely begin to approach the style or detail of the Talmud (which can also be legitimately described as the world's first hyperlinked document). I dunno. I'm not Jewish, but if I were offered the choice to study at Andover-Newton or JTSA, I think I would get much more mileage out of JTSA.


Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

He said unsupported, not unsupportable--I think he would agree that the notion of deity is quite supportable, but probably does not consider it sufficiently supported. It's a subtle difference, but an important one when it comes to an atheist or agnostic's attitude towards theists.


Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Ravi Zacharias does an incredible job. I have a tape series of his from some presentations at Harvard. Very intersting discussing theism and natural outworkings of philosophical systems (eg Stalin and Hitler out of Nietschze (?)- I know it is not spelled correctly). Before anybody says anything he demonstrates how the crusades were not natural outworkings of Christianity. At any rate, he ran circles around the Harvard students and others who attended. He also brought a unique perspective as he was born in India.

North