What follows is from an actual real email that I really actually received. I sincerely wish I were making it up, because that would reflect flatteringly upon my powers of inventing weird satirical bullshit for humorous effect.
However, this appears to be 100% True Real.
Rivendell Sanctuary, an innovative new college, announces that best-selling author and scholar Nancy Pearcey, and editor-publisher J. Richard Pearcey, will join the Rivendell faculty. The couple begins team-teaching classes in the Fall 2011.
Uh, wait, what? Rivendell Sanctuary?
Well... yes. It exists.
As to why it exists, well, I merely speculate, but from poking around their site, I think their gig is this. Suppose you have home-schooled your advanced blastocyst in the best evangelical wingnut way, to the age of 18. And suppose you recognize that no matter how much you would like to pray otherwise, your advanced blastocyst, age 18, is an absolute lettuce.
Dumb as a box of Bibles. A cretin by Sarah Palin standards. A doorstop. A rock.
Problems! Where do you park these burdensome home-unschooled-uli? In the godless local community college? Do you desperately hope they can master making change at the gas station? Can they be mulched?
Solution! The Rivendell Sanctuary offers for a fee a place to deposit wingnut lettuce-children so that they might be subject to some form of vegetable processing, as per for example what is done with freeze-dried potatoes. You think I'm kidding...
Rivendell is an 18-month, higher-learning, biblical worldview program focused on preparing high school graduates to excel academically, spiritually, morally and socially in college and citizenship.
High school graduates are increasingly ill-prepared to succeed in college today.
- 78% of graduating high school seniors are academically ill-prepared for college work – ACT, Inc.
- 75% of Christian students lose their faith during their college years – George Barna.
- 50% of all incoming freshman fail to graduate – U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 2009
These figures are tragic and unnecessary! But more importantly, many colleges and universities are ill-equipped to handle these problems, being too big and impersonal to give the kind of support and attention needed by incoming freshmen today.
Our motto is “Come To Us First!”
Good motto. "Come to us even before you politely ask the cops if little Enoch is doing science experiments or else just making meth out in the garage."
So there's probably a niche market, but still -- it's fucking weird.
Why do you call yourselves 'Rivendell Sanctuary'?
Rivendell is a sanctuary in Tolkien's epic Lord of the Rings. There, young Frodo, mortally wounded by devilish poison, found healing, understanding, his life's purpose and enduring fellowship with mentors and comrades.
Rivendell Sanctuary is intended to be a safe haven of higher education. An educational community where High School graduates -- bright as well as bored, confused, and abused -- come for two years to pursue an Associate of Arts degree with a biblical perspective on all of life and reality. Students will discover meaning and mission for their individual lives and forge deep bonds with friends, mentors, a local church and God.
We are pioneering a new brand of higher education in partnership with local churches; therefore, we are a college that does not like calling itself a college. Come, discover the secrets of Rivendell Sanctuary; find your potential through a unique education that prepares you not merely to make a living but also change your world.
Tra-la-la-lalley, are you fucking accredited, down there in the valley?
Though we cannot guarantee accreditation, we have no indication that there will be a delay in the process. In the event that accreditation takes longer than expected, we will work to secure credit transfer agreements with individual colleges and universities to the best of our ability.
Well, good luck with that.
Evaluate students according to biblical standards
Rivendell Sanctuary evaluates student development according to a biblical criterion, rather than a Western or other cultural criterion. For example, when Jesus finished teaching the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37, He followed it with the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Those present responded correctly signifying they had the correct knowledge. If they were evaluated according to Western standards, they would be given a perfect score and, thus, graduate with a 4.0. However, that was not the criterion Jesus used to measure if an individual truly understood His “lecture”. What followed were those dreaded words: “Go and do likewise.” That was the standard Jesus used to measure if someone truly understood the content. Did the student’s knowledge penetrate his or her heart and mind? Using this approach, Rivendell evaluates its students according to their day-to-day, working knowledge and demonstrated proficiency.
Jesus truly grasped the added value of authentic assessment.
(That is by the way the most mean-spirited thing I have ever written. You kind of had to be there.)
Annnyway, usually when you say "I have an educational mission, and it was inspired by Hobbits," that's kind of traditionally the end of the discussion, under normal professional circumstances. Gollum fucking Gollum.
MAS. No relation at all, what a great fucking song: