| Louisiana Baptist University |
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Information AboutLouisiana Baptist University |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LOUISIANA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY | |
| educational institutions established in 1973 | |
| shreveport, louisiana | |
| baptist schools | |
| unaccredited christian universities and colleges | |
| distance education institutions | |
Louisiana Baptist University (originally called Baptist Christian University) is a conservative Christian university, founded in 1973, with the physical campus located in Shreveport , Louisiana . The school has no accreditation from any agency recognized by the US Department Of Education , which makes it an Unaccredited university. LBU has an on-campus program, as well as an extensive Correspondence / Distance Education program, which enrolls students from all over the world. LBU offers a curriculum of over two hundred on-campus courses, with approximately ten different courses made available to students each semester and lists over four hundred distance courses; mostly in subjects pertaining to the Bible and Baptist theology. ACCREDITATION, LICENSING, AND APPROVALS On December 10, 1998, the Louisiana Board Of Regents unanimously voted to deny the University an operating license for its business programs, required it to cease admitting students, and cease advertising. Students matriculated at the time were allowed until December 31, 1999 to finish their degrees. Meanwhile, on April 22, 1999, the Board exempted the University from licensing requirements under a "religious institution exemption". [http://www.regents.state.la.us/Board/Minutes/1999/mi042299.htm LBU is one of six approved colleges and universities of the Baptist Bible Fellowship International , an organization with over 4,000 churches in the United States and several foreign countries. Students who complete their degree in missions through LBU and meet other requirements may be approved as fellowship missionaries. Louisiana Baptist University has the "approval" of the Association Of Christian Colleges And Theological Schools . ACCTS is a Christian, non-governmental agency involved in approving Christian schools. While the school is unaccredited, the web site address contains the .edu domain. This may mislead some to think the school has some standing with US government approval. However, the US Department of Education has said, "Before the U.S. Department of Commerce created its current, strict requirements, some questionable institutions were approved to use an .edu . The current requirements allow only colleges and institutions accredited by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to use the .edu." {Link without Title} The university web site lists 44 faculty, but it is unknown to what extent they are full or part-time instructors or if Louisiana Baptist employs the Tenure System . Only two people on the staff are known to have earned a PhD or other Terminal Degree from an accredited institution. The majority of the faculty listed did graduate work from LBU itself, [http://www.lbu.edu/macfacultyandstaff.html while even more have degrees under its previous name Baptist Christian University and Baptist Christian College. DIPLOMA MILL ALLEGATIONS Louisiana Baptist University matches several of the criteria for Diploma Mills , as defined by the US Department Of Education (USDE). Primarily, if a university is accredited, but not by an agency recognized by the Council On Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), then it may not be a reputable institution. LBU and the Association of Christian Colleges and Theological Schools are not listed by CHEA, nor is the school listed as a charity. [http://www.give.org/reports/index.asp The USDE has warned to, "Beware of institutions that offer college credit and degrees based on life experience, with little or no documentation of prior learning" as a sign of a suspect school. {Link without Title} LBU will accept a limited amount of three types of non-traditional credit: experiential learning credits, military experience credits, and credit by examination. Also by purchasing and reading a book by Chuck Missler one can "receive college credit from Louisiana Baptist University upon completion of the book." Assist News quoted Missler as explaining LBU "has offered course credits for those that do a 'reflective paper' on what they got out of it" besides the three semester hours credit, people "also get a certificate for it." [http://assistnews.net/strategic/s0104006.htm LBU has been criticized for not making graduate student research easily available for the academic community. At accredited schools, master's (UMI) who then submits them to the LOC. [http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/1999/99-007.html LBU does require dissertations to be professionally bound and a hardback copy submitted to the LBU library for public viewing.[http://www.lbu.edu/download/writersguide.pdf] However, due to the fact that LBU policy does not require submission to the LOC or UMI, it is relatively difficult to determine the quality of instruction and graduate work at the university. SELECTED ALUMNI
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