We asked Grant Weinberg, our fellow of philosophy and sciences, to answer the following question at our recent information night. Here’s his answer.
Why pursue a Doctor of Arts and use it to help plant a startup college in Marysville?
There is one side of this question that is strictly pragmatic.It has something to do with how I became involved with the college. When I first heard of people meeting about starting a college, I wrote to Jonathan Sarr and Sean Higgins saying that if they needed it, I would be interested in going back to school to get another master’s degree in Philosophy and teaching those classes. They kindly told me that it was too early to be talking about those kinds of things. A few months go by, and Jim Martin comes to me and asks me if I would be interested in getting a doctorate because the college needs someone with a doctorate in order to become accredited. One thing led to another, and I am now a few months away from graduating with another master’s degree and Doctorate degree. The main need and investment in doing this is for accreditation. So, this is the pragmatic answer. The Doctor of Arts is so that we can offer a Liberal Arts Degree to our students. We need someone with a Master in Liberal Arts to overseer the program and someone with a Doctorate to teach a certain amount of the undergraduate classes.
The other side of this question is to plunder the Egyptians while we either leave for the promise land or if we build the new Geneva here. I learned a lot about upper education when researching where to get my doctorate. I learned a lot about the process of upper education as I have gotten my degrees. While I do not think most people should spend as much time in school as I have, there is value for a few of us to be highly educated to learn as much as we can in order to pass these things along to the next generation. I have also seen the brokenness of the current college system. I see that there are basically two sides of the current monolith of secular colleges: degree mills and leftist indoctrination camps. They are doing opposite functions. One gives basic facts with no deeper meaning behind them while the other give plenty of meaning that is based on nothing but feeling and opinions. They have forgotten the lessons of old. They have forgotten their histories. They see the earth as very old and we are the greatest thing to come out of it. The earth is, in fact, quite young and humans have not actually changed all that much in the past 4-6000 years. There are two outcomes from the current college system. One will take your money and give you a piece of paper saying you know some things. The other will take your soul and still give you a piece of paper in congratulations as you march on to their drum, killing babies and cows in order to save the trees. These are the majority of your choices, so pick your poison. This is not every college that is out there, but it is a lot of them. There are some good ones left. They are far-ish away though and they have some doctrinal differences from us. The colleges that I have gone to have been degree mills. They want to see that I can learn things, repackage them, and put them back out in a way that is somewhat pleasing to the eyes. Oh, and not offensive. Be careful talking about mankind, it’s humankind now. I have been spared the indoctrination camps thankfully. Otherwise, I would not be finishing my degrees, as I would have gotten kicked out.
We play the same sport as the rest of the colleges because we still have to work within their system. We do want to get accredited because it will allow our students to move beyond us. Comeford College will be the end of many people college careers hopefully in the future. We are not educating for the sake of educating but for the sake of creating full worshippers of God who see their place in society. People who will go out and build a culture that is Christ-honoring. We want to build men with chests. The majority of people do not need more than an Associate or bachelor’s degree. There will be some who do choose to go into graduate programs though and these are the people that we are hoping to help with our accreditation. So, I went to school.
The last portion is: why Marysville? Sean has already given us plenty to think about in terms of Marysville. So, I’ll cut this part short. I see work that needs to be done here. God created and put me here and He has allowed me to see a need that I believe needs to be met. As we tell our students, “See a need, meet a need.” There is no college like Comeford this side of the mountains, and I would say in Washington state. There is no college, that I know of, like Comeford that is Dispensational in theology in the United States. There is a need for this college to exist. There is a location reason and a theology reason for why we are here. If I am right about these things, this is a pretty big need. It is a need that is in front of me. It is a need that I am happy to work on. It is a need that I think I am gifted by God for.
So, this is where I am placing my stand. To build something for Christ, for Marysville, and for my children who are growing up here. Asking why to do these things is a fair question. The question I would ask back is, “why not?”