Level with me: how bad is Liberty University?

[Duneranger]

Liberty has a REAL legit MEDICAL school, among a myriad of other graduate programs

Some of the schools recommended on here are absolutely a joke and borderline scams but Liberty is bad?

It has a Christian slant and one of its leaders was "out there" for sure, but the school is solid and great for military types. In some areas of academia it might raise an eyebrow (or bring forth biases) but for 99.9% of purposes it's fine.

Its utterly bizarre how much flak it gets on here when people push schools with dubious reputations at best.

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1) The school promotes an openly evangelical Christian world view. They take the Bible literally and yes, are openly against homosexuality, are very pro-life, prohibit alcohol on school property, prohibit members of the opposite gender inside the dorms, and espouse the other characteristics of evangelical Christianity. Some non-religious folks and many left sided politicians have a problem with this. For this reason many folks shy away from it, as they are convinced a degree from a Christian school will be a red flag if they try to get a job in academia or government. They are afraid of being automatically labeled as homophobic, or pro-life, or otherwise intolerant themselves... YMMV

I am very liberal and not Christian at all yet I have 2 master's degrees from a Christian university. Many colleges have a religious affiliation but that doesn't mean religion is in your face like it is at Liberty. Religion is in every course at Liberty. Religion was not in any of my courses at Amberton. When I attended Charleston Southern University religion was in every class and it had nothing to do with the course. I left after 1 term because I wanted to learn about business not religion.

Very true. Liberals do not have a problem with Christian schools. Even though Baylor University is conservative, it has a very good academic reputation. Then, there are other Christian universities that are more secular outside of their seminaries or divinity schools, such as University of Incarnate Word, Texas Christian University, and Southern Methodist University, where they don't shove religion down your throat in non-religious courses. I haven't come across any left-leaning person who has a problem with the academics of those schools. 

Liberty's biggest problem isn't that it is a "Christian" university or even that it's a conservative Christian university. Its reputation is hurt by its low graduation rate, open admissions policy for online students, having far more online students than on-campus students, teaching that Young Earth Creationism is a science, being heavily involved in politics as a non-profit organization, hypocrisy displayed by sexual scandals among its leadership, engaging in potentially illegal business activities, being founded by a bigot who lived in the 20th and 21st centuries as opposed to the 1800s, and failing to protect victims of sexual assault. On a related note, the one time Baylor's reputation was hurt was when it failed to protect victims of sexual assault.

The last time I checked, most left-leaning voters in the U.S. are still Christians. A university or an individual can be Christian and liberal.

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A) With all due respect, this is your opinion. You are entitled to such, and I can respect it, which I shall. I stated before that LU's History Program is not yet 6 years old. There is great research going on and yes, they are being published. I do think ( as opposed to you) that publishing does reflect on a program. We can agree to disagree. You are quite versed on Political Science, Criminal Justice and Government. I am not.

A)) Again, this is your opinion. I will respect your opinion. I disagree with you. That is what makes us both great folks. I think as the program grows and gets more of a firm footing, you will see more and more folks get Tier One jobs. It is about publishing (gosh, there is that word again) and teaching. You know this. You have been in interviews before.

As an applicant who is trying to get a tenure-track position at a 4-year university, yes, you want to have publications on your CV. However, academic journals do not consider the reputation of the institution you graduated from because you don't need a degree at all to publish in most journals. I think we can all agree that University of Phoenix and Capella do not have good reputations, but graduates of those schools still manage to publish. 

As for getting tenure-track positions, academia is very elitist. Departments rarely hire from departments that are ranked far below their own. If you're applying to a tenure-track position at an unranked department, then your degree being from an unranked department won't matter. Will Liberty's PhD program in history ever become ranked? I don't know. There are a lot of PhD programs in history out there, so it's hard to compete for a rank. In comparison, there are far fewer doctoral programs in criminology, so PennWest (formerly California University of Pennsylvania plus other schools) managed to become ranked in criminology. 

Since the OP is pursuing a master's degree in linguistics, if they want to teach at the college level, their only options are adjunct/lecturer work or a tenure-track position at a community college.

To be fair unless you go to a top 10-15 school in the US, you ain't getting tenure in a history track. This goes for for a lot of disciplines, but I know history very very well. Very FEW programs recommended on here will get you tenure at most colleges Most of the "hackable" BA degrees arent going to impress funded/ranked PhD History programs in the US. It is one of the snobbiest/elitist arenas out there along with classics.

There are thousands of unemployed PhDs out there. It's not just a Liberty problem.

I spoke with some of the History PhDs, there. For an online history PhD (very rare), it seemed decent, especially for an American History focus. It wasn't some hand waive BS like some of the other doctorates floated around here, they expect you to perform. Personally, it's not for me as I have no interest in the specialty areas their faculty focus on, but they have quite a few faculty who went to some solid history PhD programs.