Ron&#032Stone&#032M&#046D&#046: Isn’t the former President of PUC, by his own …

Comment on WASC promises to visit LSU spring 2011 by Professor Kent.

Ron&#032Stone&#032M&#046D&#046: Isn’t the former President of PUC, by his own admission, now working for WASC?

Yes. You had the opportunity to ask him questions at one point but instead you made accusations and mischaracterizations and drove him away. I believe he stated that he was not involved with the LSU accreditation issue.

WASC is not an enemy of the Church’s institutions. LSU should be able to accomodate both their concerns and those of the SDA Church.

Professor Kent Also Commented

WASC promises to visit LSU spring 2011
Since many of you distrust anything I say, let’s see what WASC stipulates by going to an authoritative source: WASC’s very own accreditation handbook. Here is summary of the relevant standards:

http://www.apu.edu/wasc/pdfs/wasc_accreditation_handbook.pdf

1.4 The institution publicly states its commitment to academic freedom for faculty, staff, and students, and acts accordingly. This commitment affirms that those in the academy are free to share their convictions and responsible conclusions with their colleagues and students in their teaching and in their writing.

GUIDELINES: The institution has published or has readily-available policies on academic freedom. For those institutions that strive to instill specific beliefs and world views, policies clearly state how these views are implemented and ensure that these conditions are consistent with academic freedom. Due process procedures are disseminated, demonstrating that faculty and students are protected in their quest for truth. (emphasis supplied)

1.6 Even when supported by or affiliated with political, corporate, or religious organizations, the institution has education as its primary purpose and operates as an academic institution with appropriate autonomy.

GUIDELINE: The institution has no history of interference in substantive decisions or educational functions by political, religious, corporate, or other external bodies outside the institution’s own governance arrangements.
________________

The bottom line: WASC respects religious institutions that “strive to instill specific beliefs and world views.” However, these institutions need to establish boundaries within which views can be disseminated.

I believe the university can readily effect policy which stipulates that faculty must treat SDA doctrines and lifestyle issues with respect. The university can also stipulate expectations when hiring. I’m quite certain there is a faculty handbook that provides many policies, and simple revision can probably accomplish what is needed.

Even so, WASC will probably expect allowance for faculty to express personal dissenting views, so long as they do so respectfully, without undo advocation, and within established parameters. This does not preclude strong loyalty of the institution to the Church’s mission and concerns. From the rift between Paul and Barnabas to the disagreements among SDA consituents and leaders at the 2010 Atlanta GC Convention, varying opinion has always existed in the Church. And it will remain until Jesus returns. We’ll survive until then.


WASC promises to visit LSU spring 2011

BobRyan: Does WASC consider the LSU board management of LSU to be “interference from outsiders”

No. Every university has a board.

An example of “interference from outsiders” is when an outside organization pressures an accredited institution to depart from its established policies and procedures. Firing faculty who did not violate established policies and procedures would constitute such a violation.

I’ve pointed out repeatedly that the policies and procedures can be changed, and that violators can subsequently be disciplined or fired. The board can and should have a process in this. However, many readers here have no qualms about punishing the thousands of LSU students and tuition-paying parents by demanding that LSU capitulate to their desire to fire numerous administrators and faculty. You have to have just cause. If the policies have not stated, “You must teach that the weight of scientific evidence favors a short term chronology and a global flood,” then you cannot fire teachers who do not teach this.


WASC promises to visit LSU spring 2011

BobRyan: At which time we do not hand LSU over to WASC, we simply seek another accrediting body with more objectivity. Where is the problem?

What did you have in mind? The New England Association of Schools and Colleges? The Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education?

Accreditation determines a school’s eligibility for participation in federal (Title IV) and state financial aid programs. Proper accreditation is also important for the acceptance and transfer of college credit, and is a prerequisite for many graduate programs.

The most recognized and accepted type of accreditation in the U.S. is regional accreditation. Generally, college credits or degrees received at a regionally accredited institution are accepted by other regionally accredited colleges or universities (non-regionally accredited programs are not as accepted). Anything less than regional accreditation substantially devalues a student’s diploma.

WASC just happens to be the only accreditation body in La Sierra’s region. Gosh darn.


Recent Comments by Professor Kent

Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Nic&#032Samojluk: No wonder most creationist writers do not even try to submit their papers to such organizations.
Who wants to waste his/her time trying to enter through a door that is closed to him/her a priori?

You have no idea what you’re writing about, Nic. As it turns out, there are in fact many of us Adventists who “waste” our time publishing articles through doors that open to us a priori. Even Leonard Brand at Loma Linda, a widely recognized creationist, has published in the top geology journals. I mean the top journals in the discipline.

The myth that creationists cannot publish in mainstream science is perpetuated by people who simply do not understand the culture of science–and will remain clueless that they do not understand it even when confronted with their misunderstandings. Such is human nature.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
Pauluc,

Your questions about conservation genetics are very insightful. I don’t understand how all these life forms were able to greatly increase in genetic diversity while simultaneously winding down and losing genetic information to mutations. Sean seems to insist that both processes happen simultaneously. I had the impression he has insisted all along that the former cannot overcome the latter. But I think you must be right: God had to intervene to alter the course of nature. However, we can probably test this empirically because there must be a signature of evidence available in the DNA. I’ll bet Sean can find the evidence for this.

I’m also glad the predators (just 2 of most such species) in the ark had enough clean animals (14 of each such species) to eat during the deluge and in the months and years after they emerged from the ark that they didn’t wipe out the vast majority of animal species through predation. Maybe they all consumed manna while in the ark and during the first few months or years afterward. Perhaps Sean can find in the literature a gene for a single digestive enzyme that is common to all predatory animals, from the lowest invertebrate to the highest vertebrate. Now that would be amazing.

Wait a minute–I remember once being told that SDA biologists like Art Chadwick believe that some animals survived on floating vegetation outside the ark. Now that would solve some of these very real problems! I wonder whether readers here would allow for this possibility. Multiple arks without walls, roof, and human caretakers.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Ellen White said, “In the days of Noah, men…many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians [presumably referring to humans] perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history…”

Sean Pitman said, “All human fossils discovered so far are Tertiary or post-Flood fossils. There are no known antediluvian human fossils.”

Ellen White tells us that humans and dinosaurs (presumably referred to in the statement, “a class of very large animals which perished at the flood… mammoth animals”) lived together before the flood. Evolutionary biologists tell us that dinosaurs and humans never lived together. You’re telling us, Sean, that the fossil record supports the conclusion of evolutionists rather than that of Ellen White and the SDA Church. Many of the “very large animals which perished at the flood” are found only in fossil deposits prior to or attributed to the flood, whereas hunans occur in fossil deposits only after the flood (when their numbers were most scarce).

Should the SDA biologists, who are supposed to teach “creation science,” be fired if they teach what you have just conceded?


La Sierra Univeristy Fires Dr. Lee Greer; Signs anti-Creation Bond
For those aghast about the LSU situation and wondering what other SDA institutions have taken out bonds, hold on to your britches. You’ll be stunned when you learn (soon) how many of our other schools, and which ones in particular, have taken out these bonds. You will be amazed to learn just how many other administrators have deliberately secularized their institutions besides Randal Wisbey, presumably because they too hate the SDA Church (as David Read has put it so tactfully).

Be sure to protest equally loudly.


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
@Sean Pitman:

So clearly you believe that science can explain supernatural events. Congratulations on that.