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Louisiana Baptist University

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Louisiana Baptist University
LBU Emblem
TypePrivate / unaccredited
Established1973
PresidentNeal Weaver
Academic staff44
Students1,100 undergraduate
and graduate
LocationShreveport, Louisiana, USA
Websitehttp://www.lbu.edu/

Louisiana Baptist University (LBU, originally called Baptist Christian University) is a conservative Christian university, founded in 1973, with the physical campus located in Shreveport, Louisiana. LBU is not accredited by any recognised accreditation body. As such, its degrees may not be acceptable to employers or other institutions, and use of degree titles may be restricted or illegal in some jurisdictions.

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 400 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".

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 also has the approval of the Association of Christian Colleges and Theological Schools (ACCTS), a Christian, non-governmental agency involved in approving Christian schools. ACCTS is not a recognized accreditor and Louisiana Baptist University does not represent these memberships as accreditation and they should not be taken as implying any independent academic credibility. According to Credential Watch, ACCTS is among a list of unrecognized accreditors, which are "meaningless."

Although 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."

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 six 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, while even more have degrees under its previous name Baptist Christian University and Baptist Christian College.

Diploma mill allegations

Louisiana Baptist University is alleged to match 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. Louisiana Baptist University does not claim accreditation by this agency nor does it make any claims of accreditation. In the United States associations as ACCT are without value to the academic community as a whole.

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. LBU will accept a limited amount of three types of non-traditional credit: experiential learning credits, military experience credits, and credit by examination. This practice is in line with Regionally Accredited institutions. LBU does not offer degrees based on life credit. 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."

LBU has been criticized for not making graduate student research easily available for the academic community. At accredited schools, master's theses and doctoral dissertations are microfilmed and made available for loan; and since 1940 these universities have deposited their dissertations in the United States Library of Congress (LOC) becoming available to the public. Some universities require students to submit their original dissertation and abstracts to the University Microfilms International (UMI) who then submits them to the LOC. LBU does require dissertations to be professionally bound and a hardback copy submitted to the LBU library for public viewing. 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

See also

External links

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