Bob Jones III Accreditation Rant Transcript

Do Right BJU posted audio from today's chapel message. This is of audio that was edited out of the sermon audio recording. The following is the transcript from the audio. I will comment on it in depth in future posts.

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In recent history this southern association of colleges has not made a school mission focus, it has made its, hundreds, literally hundreds of criteria, demands upon the school, its focus. It would bring, if you became accredited it was for the purpose of their bringing you into conformity to their criteria of what your school should be. As a Christian school we said we can't do that. We can't give to an external agency the right to dictate who our board is who our faculty are, whether they can be hired or fired, who they should be, what the student behavior should be. We can't relinquish that and still keep our Christian mission.

But as you were told the other day by Mr. Franklin that criteria is no longer there. They have changed their accrediting purpose. It is now to hold a school accountable for its mission. The school tells them what it is all about and they say, "we will give a public assurance that you are doing your mission." And they said this is for Christian schools as well. Your Christian mission is your mission. We're not out to change it, we're not out to dictate that it should be something else. The Governance of the school doesn't change under the present mission. The hiring and firing of faculty doesn't change. The school will not be run by student committees or faculty committees it will be run exactly as it has been run. And now that they are giving to schools that freedom to do what their supposed to be doing and just to verify it with the accrediting agency that we are doing that. There is no reason for us, there is no reason for us, if we were comfortable pursuing TRACS accreditation because the school's mission is the determinant by which they decide  whether you can be accredited or not are you doing your mission, if we are comfortable with that we are comfortable with this. It is their change not the school's change that has made the difference. And so in your interest that's what we've got to do. It is in your interest that we do it, and there is no reason now why we can't do it and still be true to our Christian purpose. I'm sure you understand that this is first and foremost a Christian Liberal arts University. The Christian fabric of this school has woven into it academic threads, but the fabric is the Christian fabric. And anything that would do damage to the fabric, the Christian fabric, is not in your interest, it is not in the interest of our mission. Our mission is one that is answerable to God and seeking to please him, and train you in a Christian context of Liberal arts Higher education. The Christian context is more important to us than any other part of this school. Always has been by the grace of God always will be. I can assure you that I am speaking for this administration who has been tasked with the Boards authority to go ahead and pursue this. And they would not pursue it apart from protecting the Christian mission at all cost.

So I just wanted you to have that little bit of background and a little bit of history behind all of this. This is not the first time we have pursued the possibility of SACS accreditation. There have been intervals of history in this school where that has been done, and until the policies of the accrediting agency changed in recent years we could never do it. Now? There is no reason not to.

Note: To follow all of the posts regarding this rant please click here.