Bob Jones University Receives TRACS Accreditation

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Guest, Apr 11, 2005.

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  1. Guest

    Guest Guest

    According to the BJU site, they have received candidacy from TRACS. BJU does offer distance learning through satellite link up or some such but I do not believe they offer a whole degree.

    http://www.bju.edu

    Interesting situation. BJU used to eschew even the idea of religious accreditation due to fear of compromise. Someone on another board thinks this recent move may have been motivated by financial interest and that it may have been hard for some students even with BJU's reputation for academic quality to use their degrees. Where I work will not accept unaccredited degrees but will accept accredited (RA or NA).

    Their candidacy does a couple of things. One is it continues to add to the quality and comprehensive nature of TRACS schools (benefit to TRACS). Second, it will leave less and less argument by unaccredited schools (real borderline religious schools) that they can compare themselves with BJU as an unaccredited quality school that avoided accreditation. Third, it means that BJU grads will likely expereince greater utility for their degrees.

    As a side note, BJU is not only experiencing this transition but also in their leadership. Bob Jones the III (?) is stepping down and his son will be taking over.

    North
     
  2. PaulC

    PaulC Member

    Great, now what school are we going to use as an example of a legitimate, unacredited university?
     
  3. Jake_A

    Jake_A New Member

    Great post! Thanks, Mr. North.
    Go, BJU!
    What? Just one school? Get with the program!. Why limit yourself to only one? According to some anonymous vociferous mill shills from other fora who frequent Degreeinfo and spew their garbage and vent their venom here and elsewhere, there are several "top-notch" entities to choose from:

    Kennedy-Western "U"
    Pacific Western "U"
    California Pacific "U"
    Columbia Pacific "U"
    Columbia State "U"
    Preston "U"
    St. Regis "U"

    More .....

    Who did I/we miss?

    LOL.

    :p
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 11, 2005
  4. jugador

    jugador New Member

    Did you know Bob Jones' son (Bob Jones IV) is working on, or has already finished, a PhD in history at Notre Dame? It's absolutely true, and the good rev goes bonkers when reporters ask him about it. The younger Jones allegedly is totally unqualified to have been admited to Notre Dame's graduate school, but ND supposedly let him in for political purposes just to get a dig in at BJU.
     
  5. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    These guys have NUMBERS? Like Popes or something?
     
  6. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I don't think that news surprises anyone, but congratulations to BJU anyway on their candidacy. (Their eventual accreditation is almost a sure thing, I think.)

    Yeah, BJU will probably be TRACS' most prominent school, their star.

    It makes that particular religious justification a lot harder. Now the determinedly non-accredited conservative schools will have to have an answer to the question why accreditation is OK for BJU and not for them.

    But I think that there are still legitimate religious schools out there for whom TRACS, ATS, AABC (or whatever its new name is) and AARTS aren't appropriate. I'm thinking less of conservative Christian schools than of non-Christian schools that are beyond the scope of even the rather elastic ATS.

    Taking over as what? Owner/proprietor? President serving at the pleasure of an independent board of trustees?

    I've noticed that non-accredited schools almost always are proprietorships or otherwise dominated by a single individual. But accredited private institutions almost always have their own institutional identity that transcends any one person. I mean, Stanford University is private, but there's no one man or even a family dynasty that controls it. (Maharishi University is a glaring exception to my rule, I think.)

    Bob Jones University seems so substantial, I figured that it had long ago transcended its founder, but if control continues to be passed down from father to son, I wonder.

    His son flirting with the anti-Christ? I guess so. LOL! Of course, studying history at Notre Dame is pretty secular, I guess. It doesn't really presuppose Catholic faith commitments. Many Notre Dame faculty and students aren't Catholics.

    But that raises a question about BJU's longtime anti-accreditation stance (TRACS apart). Was BJU simply opposed to seeking "worldly" accreditation themselves, or were they more militant than that, opposed to their target clientele pursuing their educations at any institutions that BJU's leadership considered tainted by worldliness?

    I understand that BJU hires graduates of accredited schools as faculty, so long as those graduates are willing to sign the oath in blood, sacrifice their first born and so on. So if Bob Jones IV does the same, then what's the problem with him earning a Ph.D. at Notre Dame?
     
  7. Jodokk

    Jodokk Member

    WMUU? BJ? BS!

    What kind of King Hell Loon organization would EVER accredit that pack of ravenous psychotics? I usually stay out of the political and religious BS on the board here but having been personally scarred by the joint when I was a kid, I have to say, Soviet Russia had more freedom of movement and thought.
    I was a 14 year old kid when I was sent to the academy there. When you're 14, you can't leave!
    I spent a year there before finally, thankfully, being expelled, but not before watching my friend Kevin be sent to "Lester Rolloff's" secret little camp in the desert (look it up you super-researchers) where Kevin went very obviously mad. He eventually killed himself. Sweet kid who love RUSH, pretty girls and wanted more than anything in the world to play drums for a great rock and roll band someday. He taught me everything I ever knew about drumming.
    I came a hair's breadth from being sent to Rolloff's from my BJ expulsion. I worked very hard to get kicked out of that place. But I didn't want to be sent to the brainwashing camp. Trust me, Bob Jones university should be investigated by federal authorities and shut DOWN.
    BJ the fourth was a hellion when he was in the academy there. I can't believe anyone would give any of these guys a shred of legitamacy.
    I was there from 1975-76, in Smith 101, living with the college students, the vast majority of which were constantly policing my and everyone else's every word and deed.
    From the guard's permit to carry automatic weapons to the fence that kept people like me IN, the place was crazed. One had to tell oneself that just over the fence was America, Rock and Roll, Beautiful girls and the freedom to say what you felt. (I was PC'd early on. Which means I could leave campus for any reason.) When I wrote home about the conditions and the insanity of the place, my mother was certain I was either joking or going for drama.
    For those of you that this post offends, I am sorry for your reaction, but it's the truth. I'm certain that there are plenty of folks who just love the place, and for you I say, enjoy!
     
  8. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member

    If BJU will feel that TRACS accreditation limiting they can always start or offer non credit classes to supplement their curricula, actually they can start an affiliated school and run it in parallel.


    Just a thought
     
  9. DesElms

    DesElms New Member

    A successor suggested...

    Umm... how 'bout the Graduate Theological Foundation -- often referred to, around here, as "GTF" -- ... maybe? After forty years and an impressive list of graduates who appear to have had no trouble using its degrees to achieve fairly impressive positions at regionally- and ATS-accredited institutions and a vast array of other forms of impressive employment, might it be an unaccredited institution whose time has finally come?

    Just askin'... and I mean that seriously. I'm not quite sure myself.. so I really am askin'...

    ...but would prefer that the answers and/or comments be in the "Once and for all: GRADUATE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION" thread herein... if that's okay with everyone, I mean.
     
  10. Guest

    Guest Guest

    If such institutions are indeed non-accredited based on a religious justification (i.e., real or perceived interference by the state), it will matter little to them that BJU has courted TRACS.
     
  11. Broderick

    Broderick New Member

    Please clarify.....

    Not to be argumentative but...other than being unaccredited, what is wrong with California Pacific University??? Granted it is a small, state approved operation, however there have never been statements as subversive as you say, and I quote "anonymous vociferous mill shills from other fora who frequent Degreeinfo and spew their garbage and vent their venom here and elsewhere" in relation to Cal Pac U.
    Please clarify.

    Veritas,

    Michael
     
  12. Jake_A

    Jake_A New Member

    Broderick,

    I may have mis-spoken on this one. (I am very busy right now, eating some churned crow - a lot of it.)

    Do pardon me. In my mistaken use of "California Pacific Univeristy" above, do me a favor and replace "Pacific" with "Southern."

    Ahhh, now we're talking. Cal Southern "U." Now, that's a bastion of high quality!! Something for the mills to rave about.

    I have read enough prior posts on CPU here and elsewhere and I do realize that it may be one of the few (very few!) remaining unaccredited schools with undisputable rigor and embedded excellence in Management and Business Administration programs. I do wish it all the best.

    Let me dare say (ok, bet!) that CPU will go for some form of legitimate accreditation in a few years (... counting the fingers on one hand).

    If anyone has some more crow to throw my way, I will do my darndest to gulp and stuff all of it down.

    Mea culpa.

    Thanks.
    :(
     
  13. se94583

    se94583 New Member

    Louisiana Baptist University ?
     
  14. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    Easy question. Answer: Many, but not all, of the schools that advertise in the Fundamentalist publication The Sword of the Lord. Unlike Pulpit Helps, in which almost every school that advertises is a degree mill, most of the schools that advertise in Sword are legitimate unaccredited institutions that follow classic Fundamentalism and Baptist doctrines that would easily be compatable, from a doctrinal perspective, with BJU.

    Also coming to mind: Pensacola Christian College, which has a long Fundie history without the racist baggage of BJU, although they may follow BJ in pursuing accreditation.

    Miscellaneous penses: No, BJU will not be TRAC's superstar school - that still rests with Liberty University, which hedged their bets while on SACS probation a few years back by becoming accredited both regionally and by TRACS.

    Louisiana Baptist? Hardly - it's a degree mill, as is the Graduate Theological Foundation (with its bogus ACI accreditation).

    As for the notion of BJ-IV getting his Ph.D. from Notre Dame, no big whoop there. It has always been acceptable within Fundamentalism to pursue a secular doctorate degree - their thinking is that one should remain in a doctrinally compatable school through the master's degree level, but it's perfectly appropriate to pursue the doctorate at a school that will present doctrinal challenges. I think you'll find that many professors at BJU hold secular doctorates, even from schools that BJU as an institution would be considered heathen (a class in which they would include Notre Dame, since BJU is as historically anti-Catholic as they are racist).

    Finally, there's only one thing worse than conservative whack jobs who pontificate out of their butts: liberal whack jobs who pontificate out of their butts. Can't y'all stay on topic for a change? :p
     
  15. PatsFan

    PatsFan New Member

    I'd agree that Liberty University is TRACS most prominent school currently. I don't know if Liberty offer as many degrees as BJU though? IMO Liberty seems a bit more acceptable to some non-fundies as well as fundies.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 16, 2005

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