Homofascism Watch

Gordon College is given one year by its regional accreditation agency to review its stance which includes homosexual sexual acts among forbidden sexual practices.  I expect to see more of this.
One wonders if discriminating against pre-marital sex is also at odds with the accreditation agencies anti-discrimination policy.  One also wonders if discrimination against conservatives and religion is against the policy.  One wonders.  At some point, Christians--and thinking people more generally--will wise up to the fact that accreditation agencies have long outlived any usefulness they once had.  Scrap 'em. If you want to know what sort of education a university is offering, see for yourself.

In other news, the city of Houston has issued subpoenas demanding a group of pastors turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city’s first openly lesbian mayor. And those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court.

It cannot be repeated enough: "It is not enough to obey Big Brother.  You must love him."  You must think what he thinks. You must believe what he believes.  You must do the will of Big Brother.

Education and Accreditation Jargon Generator

Give it a try! It's fun!

Here are a few that I cranked out:

We will leverage interdisciplinary critical thinking for our 21st Century learners.

We will deploy outcome-based multiple intelligences through cognitive disequilibrium.

We will benchmark standards-based alignment in authentic, real-world scenarios.

We will cultivate mission-critical ESLR's with synergistic effects.

For my dim view of accreditation and outcomes-assessment see here.

Who's Assessing the Assessors' Assessors?

Below the fold I've pasted Hales' excellent critique of accreditation assessment (mentioned in the previous post) just in case that essay is ever taken down or goes behind a pay-wall.

My Dim View of Accreditation and "Outcomes Assessment"

I can't see how any earnest educator can take seriously the accreditation process of universities with the proliferation of education jargon and pseudo-philosophical distinctions, for instance, between such things as goals, objectives, and outcomes--which apparently can't be well articulated by anyone promoting such distinctions; nonetheless, we're told over and over that here lies a very important distinction.  I, for one, will not pretend that we're doing something important as we conform our professorial practices to the will of the accreditation "experts."

In truth, accreditation doesn't really care a fig about (ultimate) goals and outcomes.  Accreditation doesn't care what my ultimate goals are (well, as long as they fit with the university goals--but those goals could be pert near anything).  If my goal is to have my students skeptical of the resurrection of Jesus by the end of the semester--GREAT--just make sure this (in some nebulous way) fits with the university goals and make sure to DO THAT.  If an intended outcome is that my students in my Modern Philosophy class learn about Winston Churchill--no one will raise a fuss--just so long as the students' learning about Churchill is an outcome fulfilling a goal for the course.  What the goals are isn't a focus; what matters most is whether one has a means-ends rational plan that is properly documented for the assessors.

Here is an example: I am currently redesigning my online Introduction to Philosophy course.  Presumably because of university assessment procedures, we are to document the matching up of all our assignments with the course objectives.  Every assignment must fulfill an objective in the course and this must be documented.  My first thought is: