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Biology professor at Seventh Day Adventist college asked to resign over drinking

Questioninggeller

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Gary Bradley, an adjunct professor at the Seventh Day Adventist operated La Sierra University, has been on the radar of the adminstration because he doesn't accept young Earth creationism and this provoked problems with the church and school. Now, Bradley has been asked to resign for consuming alcohol and saying "unflattering comments" while watching a basketball game at someone's private home.


Blasphemy of a Different Kind
June 15, 2011
insidehighered.com

Things have gone from bad to weird at La Sierra University.

The university, which is affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has been dealing in recent months with a controversy over the teaching of evolution that has its Adventist benefactors threatening to withdraw its religious accreditation — and the $4 million per annum that comes with it. Now the university faces a scandal in which a trustee, a vice president, a dean, and an adjunct professor were asked to resign over a recording made, purportedly by accident, of the four men talking informally about the church and university leadership.

The president of La Sierra’s board of trustees on Friday asked for the resignations of Jeff Kaatz, the vice president for university advancement; Jim Beach, the dean of arts and sciences; Lenny Darnell, a trustee; and Gary Bradley, an adjunct professor of biology, according to a campuswide note from the administration.

In recent years, La Sierra has been at the center of an imbroglio over the teaching of human origins that was sparked when a website published e-mails between a biology student and Bradley, the adjunct caught up in the current debacle.

Bradley had rejected a student paper for failing to demonstrate an adequate understanding of mainstream evolutionary theory before advocating for a creationist alternative. That led to an investigation by the board into the biology curriculum. In April, the Seventh-day Adventist Church North American Division voted to extend La Sierra’s religious accreditation by a single year and advised the university to rededicate itself to Adventist principles. (One of the church's "fundamental beliefs" is that God created all human things in six days, as described in the Bible.)
...
According to the Spectrum article, Darnell met up afterward with Beach, Bradley, and Kaatz at a private home, where they watched a National Basketball Association playoff game and discussed the meeting. The recorder kept running, unbeknownst to the four men. It captured “foul language, references to alcohol consumption and unflattering comments being made about board members, administrators, and church leaders,” according to the article. Darnell then sent the recording to a number of key members of the Adventist community, including The Spectrum, reportedly without knowing that it contained more than just the audio of the meeting. Eventually, the recording made its way to Ricardo Graham, chair of the board of trustees.
...
In a statement on Tuesday, the university reiterated its stance that the situation has nothing to do with the conflict over the biology curriculum.
...
Article: insidehighered.com
 
What comment is to be made?
It's not unusual to my experience for an SDA institution to find a way to remove teachers and staff who vocally depart from church dogma.

My alma mater is an SDA school now known as Southern Adventist University.
In my sophomore year a too liberal behavioral sciences teacher secretly took some of his students to see Clockwork Orange. The editor of the school newspaper took photos and placed them on the president's desk. He also wrote an expose about that teacher for the next edition.
Then president, Frank Knittel canned the teacher but was later caned himself for not towing the line on a matter of SDA theology.

BTW two of my higher education years were spent at La Sierra University.
(It was just the undergraduate school for Loma Linda University at the time.)

SDAs are pretty serious about Creationism, though their position is Old Earth Creationism in which the geological ages of the Earth are acknowledged.
The Genesis account is interpreted as merely the most recent creation intervention on the already existing Earth, in which man was created.

Another BTW:
This Ronald Numbers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Numbers
was also a graduate of Southern Adventist University (then called "Southern Missionary College).
 
What did he expect? He's just lucky he hasn't been forced to go to a stadium to wait for the end of the world. He's better off leaving the place.
 
What can you expct if a university depends for its funding on a religious institution that expects the school to toe the church line?

For genuine academic scholarship, free of preconceived notions, you would need to go to an independent university.
 
Hey I actually went there. Not as a student. Ok not as a LSU student. I was doing some work with an archaeology professor who sometimes deals with stuff older than the Young Earth, but he keeps his job...
 
PZ Myers had a short article:

How convenient
(...)
I think they're all better off getting out of that crazy place. The absurdity of being pressured to teach lies in the classroom ought to have been reason enough to leave, but that they have employers who want to control what they do after hours in their own homes ought to convince anyone that it's time to leave.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/06/how_convenient.php
 
The idea that this has nothing to do with his biology curriculum is laughable.

I had two friends who were kicked out of Abilene Christian University back in the 80s, after their cars were spotted at a bar. The license plate numbers were taken down, and they were reported to administration. They were both so happy to have been kicked out of that nuthouse.
 
The idea that this has nothing to do with his biology curriculum is laughable.

I had two friends who were kicked out of Abilene Christian University back in the 80s, after their cars were spotted at a bar. The license plate numbers were taken down, and they were reported to administration. They were both so happy to have been kicked out of that nuthouse.

Scandal! Scandal!
A new Dormitory Dean, at what is now Southern Adventist University, was caught eating ham at an IHOP. (Ham is "unclean" in SDA.)
 
religious accreditation

ay6dyd.jpg
 
What do they mean "The recorder kept running, unbeknownst to the four men." What recorder?
 

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