If you haven’t already, you should probably read part 1, part 2, and part 3 of this series. You may also want to read my rant about picking this horrible topic.

The Board’s investigation found that a small majority of students interviewed agreed that their biology classes taught evolution as fact. They were horrified by how how it appeared that the faculty wasn’t teaching creationism, enough so that they issued an apology:

We found that only 50 percent of the students surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that our Adventist view of creation was presented, and only 40 percent agreed or strongly agreed that our Adventist view was supported. This is not acceptable, and we apologize.

I agree that this is not acceptable, but for obviously different and quite opposite reasons.

At least early on Dr. Bradly had not been pressured to change his class:

Bradley says he’s felt no pressure to change anything about his course, and says bluntly that he doesn’t plan to turn his class into a theological seminar, or to present evolutionary theory only to then dismantle it for students. While he’s fine with helping students work through struggles of faith, Bradley says he won’t undercut decades of peer reviewed scientific research in the interest of religious consistency.

“I am not OK with getting up in a science course and saying most science is bullshit,” he said…

Bradly is in the process of retiring, but is still teaching part time.

A have a feeling that if he were asked to change, he has enough integrity to refuse. I’m happy to say that at this time Bradly is still listed in LSU’s faculty directory as a part time professor in the Biology department, so it looks like he hasn’t been forced into full retirement yet.

While they haven’t made changes to the way existing biology classes are taught, they added a freshman seminar to cover such topics as the church’s doctrine of creationism and the role of faith and science that is team taught by the biology and religion departments and the Geoscience Research Institute.

I’m very happy that they aren’t sacrificing academic integrity for the sake of appeasing the church. Sure, the seminar they’ve added is an obvious move to play church politics, a concession to placate the inquisition. Of course, they have to walk the proverbial tight rope.

In 2010 La Sierra was visited by both the regional accrediting body, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), and the church accrediting body, the Adventist Accrediting Association (AAA). Neither passed, at least not completely.

WASC extended La Sierra’s accreditation for 8 years, but they’re going to keep a close eye on this with a special visit that took place last month and additional reporting from the school. According to the “Commission Action Letter” from June 29, 2010:

As highlighted in the team report, “[o]ver the last fifteen months, the issue of creationism vs. evolution has been the subject of considerable attention at La Sierra University.” The Seventh Day Adventist Church has a historic and current belief in the six-day creation of the world and La Sierra University places high value on critical evaluation and science education. There has been considerable tension between these two principles, and since the spring of 2009, the University and several of its biology faculty members have been the focal point of a major church-related controversy… This situation involves several basic principles in the WASC Standards: academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and the role of the governing board. Realizing that this is a challenging denominational matter, the Commission is deeply concerned with this external threat to La Sierra’s institutional autonomy and to academic freedom… The Commission’s action, described below, is intended to assure that La Sierra University withstands this threat and continues to meet WASC Standards.

Given the above, the Commission acted to:

C. Schedule a Special Visit in spring 2011, focused on the issues surrounding the teaching of evolution in the science curriculum, including institutional autonomy, the appropriate role of the board and faculty, and academic freedom. The institution’s spring 2011 Special Visit report will be due eight weeks prior to this visit. 

D. Schedule an Interim Report due Nov. 1, 2014, focused on the issues set forth in this letter, including strategic planning, assessment, student success, information technology and institutional research, and any unresolved matters related to the controversy about the teaching of science.

The AAA team that inspected the school unanimously recommended continued accreditation. Their recommendation was rejected by the AAA board, giving the university

until the end of 2012 to resolve the clash to the satisfaction of religious accreditors or risk losing recognition from the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a loss that could put $4 million in financial support from the Christian denomination in jeopardy.

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I wish I could say that I would expect this to blow over and LSU to be able to continue teaching good science without harassment and meddling, but I have my doubts. Throughout the history of the denomination there has been a pendulum swing from very conservative leadership to relatively liberal leadership. For those of you fortunate enough to have always been outside the Adventist church it would like swings between extreme fundamentalist potions and moderately conservative positions.

The last two decades have been pretty liberal, so this controversy may be part of that swing to the right. It’ll be interesting to see if the church’s leadership will compromise for political expedience. After all, when it comes to science, they have quite a few good scientists teaching at Adventist Universities, the very strong research programs at Loma Linda University, and a massive hospital system. Even at the local level, the church budget is usually met due to generous contributions by the doctor(s) in the congregation. If they don’t put a stop to this inquisition, they risk alienating the intellectual, scientifically literate members of the church. I don’t know if they could stand to lose their financial base.

Ted Wilson wouldn’t have been elected GC president if he wasn’t smart enough to avoid that mistake.