Talk:Trinity International University/Archive 1

Name change
I changed the disambig from "Trinity College" to "Trinity Christian College", which is also in the Chicago area, and the most likely source of confusion.

Mission
The mission section of this article is simply awful. It reads like the college wrote it, furthermore, many academics and epistemologists likely disagree with the mission itself. It would be nice if it was attributed to a source, rewritten or removed entirely. --24.207.236.232 (talk) 06:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

That section appears to have been removed, but the fact that the only sources listed are from TIU's own website is troubling enough in itself. (When I checked the TIU site I got a fair idea for the sort of awfulness that 24.207.236.232 probably had in mind.) 174.111.242.35 (talk) 19:21, 18 April 2011 (UTC)


 * "Mission" sections have no real function, since they tend to fall into two categories: written by the subject, and appallingly self-serving and violative of WP:NPOV; and written by others, full of original research and unsourced assertions as to the subject's real mission. As a role, they will be stricken. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  22:17, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Approvals, accreditation and memberships (previously just "Accreditation and memberships")
This section is clearly out-of-date, and so there's quite a bit to say about it because of that; but there are also flat-out incorrect or incomplete things in it.

To begin with, the section indicates that Trinity is accredited by "the Illinois State Board of Education." That is incorrect in two ways...

First, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) concerns itself with elementary, middle and secondary schools, and with teacher certification, but not with higher (post-secondary) education. It is the Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) that handles colleges, universities, seminaries, post-secondary trade schools, etc.

And, second, neither ISBE or IBHE are accreditors. To be an accreditor, as US academia understands that terms, the accrediting agency/entity must be approved by either or both of the US Department of Education (USDE), and/or the USDE-sanctioned Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA); and they must be listed on either or both of the USDE's list of approved accreditors, and/or CHEA's list of approved accreditors (only those above the "Supporters" heading on that linked-to page).

Most state higher education authorities, for the most part, only approve and list institutions of higher learning; and that which they approve tends to be mostly just basic credibility issues. Some of them, though, may also require that the school is either already accredited by a USDE- and/or CHEA-approved agency, or is on a typically maximum five to ten-year plan to become so accredited. There are actually a precious few state higher education authorities which truly accredit, and are USDE- and/or CHEA-approved for such, but they tend to only programmatically accredit, or accredit certain kinds of professional education; but they don't usually generally accredit.

So the bottom line regarding overall approval in Illinois is that IBHE, not ISBE, generally oversees/approves Trinity to operate in the state of Illinois. But IBHE does not accredit. Rather, IBHE has only approved and lists Trinity (as a "private NFP institution"), in the same manner as most other state boards or commissions or similar state higher education authorities only approve and list the institutions of higher education in their states, but don't "accredit" them.

However, there is an ISBE approval, to wit: Trinity's elementary and secondary teacher education programs at its School of Education have been ISBE approved such that their graduates may obtain Illinois teaching certificates. But even that is not "accreditation;" it's just approval... and even Trinity's website calls it that. The confusion, I've determined, arises from ISBE playing fast and loose with the terms "approval" and "accrediation" (and even, to some degree, "certification") on its website. But when one finally drills down to Trinity's listing on page 73 of the official Directory of Illinois Approved Programs (a PDF file), one can see that it's approval, not accreditation. Again, ISBE doesn't accredit.

Additionally, Trinity is now claiming, on its website, that its athletic programs are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE). The problem is that CAATE, though seemingly credible, is not USDE- or CHEA-approved... at least not yet. If CAATE intends to have the credibility that its website would appear to be attempting to convey, then it will need to be approved by at least one or the other of USDE and/or CHEA... preferably both. Perhaps CAATE has its application in; I haven't checked; however, the fourth paragraph of the "History" section of the Wikipedia article on athletic training goes a long way toward explaining how CAATE came to be, and also why the article states that Trinity is accredited by then Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) (which I'll address further in the third paragraph down from here).

Notwithstanding whether or not CAATE should even (at least yet) be called an "accreditor" (because it lacks, at least as of this momemt, either USDE or CHEA approval), CAATE would appear to be as credible as most USDE- and/or CHEA-approved accreditors (unlike the bogus accreditors, or "accreditation mills" out there), and so it seems right to me that Trinity's CAATE "accreditation" should be in the article, but with a mention that CAATE is not an either USDE- or CHEA-approved accreditor (and if it can be subsequently determined that CAATE is in the process of becoming one, then that might also be worthy of mention in the article).

The "credible, but not approved by USDE and/or CHEA" issue is relevant, too, regarding TIU's website's claim of its law school being accredited by the California State Bar's (CALBAR's) Committee of Bar Examiners (CALBAR CBE). Trinity's law school is, indeed, "accredited" by CALBAR CBE; and CALBAR CBE is, indeed, credible. However, CALBAR CBE's "accreditation" is nevertheless not USDE- or CHEA-approved; and for California law schools, CALBAR CBE accreditation is sometimes in competition with American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation, which is both USDE- and CHEA-approved. Trinity's law school's "accrediation" by CALBAR CBE is worthy of mention in the article; but mention, again, should be made of that CALBAR CBA is not an accreditor approved by either USDE or CHEA. Interestingly, Trinity's law school is also included in Trinity's regional accredition.

The section also claims that Trinity is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP), yet there's not so much as a mention of Trinity anywhere on the CAAHEP website... not even historically. CAAHEP is both USDE- and CHEA-approved, and so its accrediation of Trinity, if that's the case, should appear in both the USDE database and/or the CHEA database, yet it appears in neither. Moreover, Trinity is not claiming CAAHEP accreditation on the accreditation page of its website. So CAAHEP accreditation should definitely be removed, altogether, from the article...

...especially now that we know, from the 4th paragraph of the aforementioned "History" section of the Wikipedia article on athletic training, why: "A year later CAHEA was broken up and replaced with the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP), which then lead the accreditation process. In 2003 JRC-AT, Joint Review Committee on Athletic Training completely took over the process and became an independent accrediting agency like all other allied health professions had. Three years later (in 2006) JRC-AT officially became the Committee for Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE), which is fully in charge of accrediting athletic training programs in the United States." And while that's all well and good, CAATE is nevertheless not approved by either USDE or CHEA, either as it has existed since 2006 named "CAATE," or as it was named JRC-AT from 2003 to 2006.

Finally the "Illinois State Scholarship Commission (ISSC)," of which Trinity is said, in the article, to be a member, became the "Illinois Student Assistance Commission" (ISAC) in 1989; and ISAC has no institutional members. ISAC's commission members are individuals, none of whom, at this writing, have anything to do with Trinity. However, the Trinity undergraduate college website contains the language, "Trinity is approved by the Illinois State Scholarship Commission for Illinois students to receive state scholarships," so it appears that Trinity never claimed "membership" in the Illinois State Scholarship Commission; and, instead, was simply approved by it for receipt of scholarship purposes. And Trinity is, as of this writing, similarly ISAC approved. Since ISAC was created in 1989 to replace ISSC, it appears that Trinity's website is woefully out-of-date, too.

At any rate, because we want the Wikipedia article to be accurate, I've gone ahead and updated/improved/overhauled the entire section (including giving it a new name: "Approvals, accrediation and memberships") to reflect the above.

Gregg L. DesElms (Username: Deselms) 05:24, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

History
The history section of this article is very confusing, and isn't written in a standard encyclopedic format. Should the section be rewritten from scratch, or modified? It may also not be relevant to have a history section if the only historical changes listed are the university renaming itself. While I am sure that more has changed than this, it does not contribute much value to just give name changes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucus432 (talk • contribs) 18:59, 9 April 2017 (UTC)