(04-08-2021 10:37 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-07-2021 09:31 PM)mturn017 Wrote:  

(04-07-2021 08:52 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(04-07-2021 07:48 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(04-07-2021 06:17 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  I've spent my entire career in academia and, whatever any particular person may think about US News, the rankings do have an impact. They are taken pretty seriously because the public takes them seriously.

They are taken seriously as far as marketing the University to high school students. And a single anecdote about a purported science professor teaching fantasy in lieu of science might only go so far, but if a few more anecdotes along the same lines could be collected by those advocating against Liberty's admission into a conference, it would go a long way to securing enough "No" votes.

I would guess that the use of such anecdotes would only be persuasive to those who are already at least somewhat opposed to Liberty on liberal ideological grounds.
Decision makers not so inclined against Liberty would likely reject anecdotes in favor of the objective results of the accreditation processes, which are the formal and independent processes used to determine the academic adequacy of a university, and Liberty has met those criteria.

Unfortunately for Liberty, as other have mentioned, university presidents do tend to have a liberal ideological bent, and so tend to be ideologically opposed to Liberty regardless of the results of objective accreditation processes.

The “anecdotes” are promoted on their schools website here’s your Liberty Biology and Geology departments:

https://www.liberty.edu/news/2017/05/02/...-new-book/

https://www.liberty.edu/news/2017/02/20/...this-week/

The University of Phoenix is accredited by the same agency as the University of Arizona. They’re ranked in US News nationally from 298-389. Do you really think that influences University Presidents or employers or really anyone into thinking that the University of Phoenix is a beacon of higher learning or on par with others with those same credentials? That just shows how useless those metrics are.

Liberty has been smart though. They took that money and invested heavily in their Lynchburg campus, including athletics. They subsidize their tuition to compete financially with public schools in VA. A lot of that was JF Jr’s doing but they needed to dump him. With time they can enter into mainstream higher learning but they’ve got a ways to go regarding reputation. That’s not bias, that’s fact.

Not sure how it matters what anecdotes Liberty advertises on its website. The accreditation process is the objective determinant of the adequacy of a university. After that, rankings like US News come in to play, but as I said, look at the Forbes rankings, and you will see Liberty ranked in the same tier with many G5 schools as well. You will likely be hard-pressed to find any objective ranking system that doesn't have Liberty in that same general tier. Washington Monthly has them ranked right alongside schools like Toledo, Tulsa and Akron. They seem to clearly be a G5-level academic institution.

The University of Phoenix is not IMO a valid comparison, because they are a essentially an online university, and they don't have any athletics. Liberty has over 15,000 students on an actual campus, and it has athletics.

What part of academia exactly are you a part of where you don't know how to properly use the word "anecdote". I showed that the denial of evolutionary biology is NOT anecdotal but a cornerstone of their learning. If you're still doubtfull, 2 courses of Creation Studies is required of every student and "Creation Hall" is located on the 2nd floor of the Center for Natural Sciences. They do what they need to for accreditation purposes with their curriculum but it's front and center. Under no circumstances could this topic be called "anecdotal".

I also showed that accreditation and US News rankings are basically worthless for comparison sakes unless you hold a degree earned from the University of Phoenix in the same regard as one from Tulsa, Toledo or Akron. You seem pretty fixated on these things, likely because your pre assumed position is that Liberty is a pariah due to politics not academics. Which isn't completely wrong but not completely right either. They have several self-inflicted wounds that keep them from being considered a peer institution to many schools. The Falwell's are a large part of it.