TomVols said:
Trinity professors do present papers regularly at the Evangelical Theological Society meetings. One SBC seminary professor told me in that he recommended to all his students who could not attend class for a PH.D. or a D.Min, to do them at Trinity because they were well structured.
FWIW.
===
In 2000 I was in the TTS PhD in Bible. I had been convinced by the Seminary's claims, the ,qualifications of the faculty and the testimonies of church leaders and graduates that the TTSgrad programs must be substantial. I was wrong! I was admitted into the PhD with no exams; the program required no work in languages.
After three courses it became quite clear that this was not doctoral work at all, and it also began to sink in that all the claims as "world wide accreditation" and "unexcelled excellence" were deceptions.
PhD students used the same textbooks and listened to the same cassettes as did MDiv students. One's papers might be evaluated by someone else, less qualified, than the professor of record. In fact, it was difficult to discuss issues with the professors at times. A simple page taken from Bloom's Taxonomy was used as a grading tool so Profs were not required to really interact with submissions.
I began to complain about this and to question the TTS accreditation through Liverpool (for which I paid an additional $225!)on the TTS discussion forum (T Delta ). A TTS VP came on to quiet me, but I was vocal and so was banned.
Before the banning, profs and the VP on T Delta made optimistic prophecies of a soon to be achieved new accreditation.
If the real reason why one cannot enter a real doc program is cost or residential classes, and not the sometimes actual reason that one is just unprepared to do real doc work, then, why not consider a South African University?
After dropping out of TTS, I stumbled across the South African option. In 2001 I "entered" a doc program at a SA public university of 6500 students. While TTS went on making its wild claims of quality ,and by deception separating God's people from their hard earned cash, I entered in 2001 the ThD at Unizul. ( I had already finished grad degrees in "Religion" from accredited US schools: MA, MDiv, ThM,). In 2004 I finished the ThD in Systematic Theology. In 2005 I joined the faculty of a small US school.
I attended no classes and paid under $3000 for this degree.
Unlike your SBC prof, I would never recommend TTS! It is a deceiver and has offered substandard curricula-IMO!
The test of a good school, IMO, is not what rigor the student is allowed but what rigor is required by an academically prepared faculty which wishes to academically prepare doctoral students.
