New Saint Andrews has Idaho’s top graduation rate

New Saint Andrews College has the highest overall graduation rate (79 percent) and retention rate (81 percent) of first-time full-time students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in the state of Idaho.  Only Idaho’s private colleges and universities have graduation rates above 60 percent.

Idaho’s 4-Year Institutions	Overall Graduation Rates, (Students who began 2005) 2011		Retention of First-Time Full-Time Students Pursuing Bachelor Degrees, 2011
	Rate (%)	Rank	Rate (%)	Rank
New Saint Andrews College	79	1	81	1
College of Idaho	63	2	80	2 (tie)
Brigham Young University-Idaho	61	3	73	3
Northwest Nazarene University	52	4	72	4
University of Idaho	51	5	80	2 (tie)
Boise State University	31	6	69	5
Lewis-Clark State College	31	7	56	7
Idaho State University	29	8	61	6

Data Source: National Center for Education Statistics, College Navigator, (accessed May 20, 2013)

Collateral Damage from the New Academic Witch Hunts

Academic freedom and creationists are both at risk these days on secular campuses where new academic witch hunts are underway.

A fair number of science professors at state universities,  sympathetic to a non-evolutionary theories of origins, are being vilified, brow-beaten, ostracized or even dismissed for their “unorthodox” views leaking into the classroom. Calls for their dismissal from the faculty or removal from their courses abound from secular scientists whose own religiously deep commitments to evolutionary theory and naturalistic materialism will tolerate no divergent opinions. For them, scientific orthodoxy is at stake. Their opponents are the new academic heretics.

Quite apart from the supposed conflicts of church and state–which have always been overstated by secularists and undersupported by the U.S. Constitution (all “separationist” language is found outside the constitution, not in it, for example*)–this issue has become a deep and important test of  academic freedom at secular universities.  If the new generation of evolutionary zealots win, can academic freedom–in any meaningful sense–survive? I think not.

Bill DeJong Challenges NSA Grads to Cultivate Wonder

The Rev. Bill DeJong, pastor of Cornerstone Church, a Canadian Reformed congregation in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, delivered the 2013 commencement address at New Saint Andrews College’s 16th Commencement entitled, “The Sweetness of Light: Cultivating a Hermeneutics of Wonder.”

He previously pastored congregations in the United Reformed Church of North America for 12 years, in Grande Prairie, AB, and Kansas City, MO. He was elected the stated clerk of the URCNA federation’s Synod in 2004.

He serves on the board of directors for the Paideia Centre for Public Theology in Ancaster, Ontario.

Pastor DeJong is a Ph.D. Candidate at McMaster Divinity College, and he holds the M.Div. from Mid-America Reformed Seminary (1996) and a B.A. from Redeemer University College (1993).

His publications include a chapter in The Glory of Kings (edited by Peter Leithart and John Barach, Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick, 2011), a festschrift honoring James B. Jordan.

Machen: Federal Department of Ed “worst calamity”

J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)
Professor of NT, Princeton Seminary, 1906-1929 & founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, 1929

“We do not, I think, want a federal Department of Education because such a Department is in the interest of a principle of uniformity or standardization in education which would be the very worst calamity into which this country could fall.”

–J. Gresham Machen

Thx: Perry Coghlan & David New

Colorado U seeks conservatives to diversify

State universities are bastions of liberalism, but this may be a first:  CU wants to add conservatives for intellectual diversity. Too bad libs don’t recognize conservatives as a protected class minority. Imagine them throwing a “coming out” party for a faculty member who declared herself a conservative or better, a Christian.

Read more here.

Eaton on Accreditation Challenges & Opportunities

CHEA President Judith Eaton speaks to the challenges and opportunities ahead for our system of higher education accreditation in this podcast just released by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. Worth a listen.

Student Housing like Jail, University says in Court

Students have always known that college dorms were a poor substitute for  home, but what the University of Nebraska-Kearney argued in federal court  last week is a stunner: the University’s counsel argued (in trying to deny that students had fair housing rights) that dorms are more like jail than residential housing. Yup, you read that right. According to the University of Nebraska-Kearney’s argument in federal court, students should just feel like they’re inmates, because they ARE inmates. Dorms are like jail. The university said so before a federal judge.

In case you missed this recent case news (4/19/13), the U.S. Federal District Court for Nebraska ruled against the University of Nebraska-Kearney in a “fair housing” dispute with one of its students,

Excursus: Why the King stood for the Hallelujah chorus

When the music of this passage began, King George, I believe, made a royal statement about authority and honor in the political economy of England itself: the Christian King of England is under authority and must show honor and respect to his Supreme Lord, the King of Kings, just as the people must rise and show honor and respect in the presence of their English Lord and King. As one under authority King George could do no less. Read on . . .

[This may be a bit off topic--higher ed--but only a bit. My wife reminded me last week at Easter, while we were blasting the Hallelujah chorus over our stereo for our grand kids to hear in all its glory, of this observation I made  a few years back about why the King stood for the chorus. The higher ed connection is easy. Yes, Handel's Messiah is regularly performed by college choirs at Christmas and Easter time, and students and other members of the audience, following tradition, routinely stand. But they shouldn't do so mindlessly. More importantly, the posture of standing--to show respect and honor--in the presence of royalty--especially the King of Kings--is something we must learn anew in a secular and egalitarian age. Here's my argument for why the King stood and why we should still do so today.]

King George II stood up at the performance of George Frederick Handel’s “Hallelujah chorus” on March 23, 1743. No one knows for sure why he stood, because he never told us.

The most popular and most repeated modern myth is that “he was so moved” or “overcome by emotion” by the music that he felt compelled to stand. A few simple observations undermine this thin explanation:

Reply to Homosexual Charges against Christian Colleges

This is an excellent response by Wheaton’s Provost Stanton Jones to an anonymous homosexual professor’s open letter accusations against conservative Christian colleges, published by Inside Higher Ed. Here is a short excerpt. I encourage you to read the whole letter.

“I affirm and even celebrate your right to disagree with theological and moral convictions that have been embraced by the Christian denominations for 2,000 years. This is part of the core of religious freedom. At the same time I affirm and celebrate the right of religious institutions – denominations, churches, schools, social service agencies and others – to stand for precisely these theological and moral convictions and to constitute themselves as they see fit by employing individuals who fully identify with those defining convictions, as I have argued earlier in this publication.

“Beyond individual religious freedom, a key facet of the constitutionally protected right of religious liberty is the right to the free exercise of religious belief, the right for religious persons to form themselves into organizations without external interference by government or government actors. You argue, “Much of this debate at your institutions hinges on biblical hermeneutics.” It does indeed, and each institution’s stand on biblical hermeneutics is as much an intrinsic and integral part of its religious identity as other aspects of its belief systems.”

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2013/04/03/essay-responds-open-letter-gay-professor-christian-college#ixzz2PRzuWiYM
Inside Higher Ed

New Idaho Law Protects Religious Pluralism on Campus

Seems to me that if you have to pass such legislation, in a state as politically conservative as Idaho no less, you’re admitting that your government universities have already developed an institutional culture that fundamentally restricts and threatens religious freedom and religious expression. Such culture, promoted and protected by overwhelmingly a- and anti-religious faculty and administrators, won’t and can’t be changed by legislation. 

Idaho Passes Law Protecting Religious Pluralism on Campus – The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education – FIRE.