Old Friend Ronald Pellar - Founder of Columbia State University

I came across these quite by accident;

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20060805-9999-7m5dante.html

http://www.drrondante.com/4444/index.htm

The most infuriating thing of all is there are still people proudly listing degrees from Columbia State, some at RA schools;

http://www.talladega.edu/index/faculty
McLeod, Lindy (2004)
Associate Professor of Music, Chair, Department of Music
B.A., William Carey College; M.Ed. and Ph.D., Columbia State University.

http://www.medicalhypnosis.info/about-drglassman.htm
B.A. Rutgers University - Livingston College
M.P.H. Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons - School of Public Health
Ph.D. Columbia State University - School of Social Sciences
Postgraduate Fellow in Health Education - Beth Israel Medical Center, Newark, NJ
Postdoctoral Clinical Training - Harvard Medical School Mind/Body Institute

http://www.saddleback.edu/CC/documents/Facultypages230-239.pdf
Korper, Steve (2002)
Associate Professor, Business Science
B.S., DeVry Institute of Technology
M.S., Ph.D., Columbia State University

http://catalog.endicott.edu/content.php?catoid=6&navoid=102
President, The College for International Studies, Madrid
María Díaz
B.A., M.A., Columbia State University

http://www.mssu.edu/catalog06-08/faculty06.pdf
Jean D. Erwin Jr.
Instructor, Respiratory Care 1995
Bachelor’s (BSAST), Thomas Edison State College
Master’s (M.S.), Columbia State University

http://www.vanguard.edu/uploadedFiles/Catalog/C0607_Administration_and_Faculty.pdf
COVETTA, MELVYN, M.L.S. (1980) Associate Professor and Librarian. B.S., Trevecca College; M.L.S., Kent State
University; M.S., Columbia State University.
Doctorate (Ph.D.), Clayton College
Registered Respiratory Therapist (RRT)

 

What a great story. By the way, I have a BS from Columbia State University !!!!

 

My favorite quote from the article is:
“They all realized what they were getting,” he said. “I mean, come on, who's kidding who? They were getting a Ph.D. in a month.”

Everyone touting their unaccredited degree must understand this, deep down inside -- even while they are describing how much work they put into their degree or complaining that they weren't fully informed about accreditation.

Steve

 

I sort of regret never getting one for a conversation piece, but my children are proud graduates of the Millard Fillmore Institute, whose diplomas put any of mine to shame!

 

Shame on them, especially using them to teach.

 

It cost me $1,500 and a lesson learned. Here is the link to where I first told my "Columbia State" story. I pasted it below because I think it is a great story

posted in 2004 from a "paper" I was mailed (notice my selection of words) in about 1996
When I started with all of this DL stuff, I only knew of California Pacific University and Thomas Edison State College. I saw an ad in USA Today (I think) for Columbia State University and requested information. They send me a large catalog with hundreds of schools and information about them. Of course, this book listed Columbia State and the best of all of them.

I started to contact schools and went with Columbia State because who could argue with a "28 day degree". I completed my Columbia State degree and put it on my resume. I even got an interview with IBM for their IT department. A couple of days later, the Tampa Bay news exposed a school that awarded a dog a degree in literature. Guess what school that was. I called IBM and cancelled the interview to save further humiliation. After Columbia State was exposed; I started to look at other schools that required some real work.

I found CCU listed in the catalog that Columbia State mailed me. other schools such as Penn State were listed so I new they were not all scams. I had my choices down to CCU and TESC. TESC seem too expensive and difficult to deal with. I went with CCU due to their price and all inclusive program.

I later fully understood the accreditation issues and, since I enrolled in the BS/MBA program at CCU, I completed the CCU program while working on my BS from COSC.

Did I do a lot of extra work...hell yes! Am I uniquely qualified to give opinions on degree mills, state approved schools, and RA school...I think so.

Now that is the whole ugly story.

 

Ouch....I didn't know they were that expensive; a bit too rich for a conversation piece!

Is it at least a nice diploma?

 

Thanks for continuing to help others from making similar mistakes. I have learned a lot over the years about RA, NA, and bogus accreditation thanks to people like you sharing your (sometimes very expensive) lessons learned.

I received a "catalog" from Columbia State University in the late 90's. Thankfully, I didn't fall for it or any of the other unaccredited or marginally accredited schools over the years. That's in large part thanks to folks like you on DegreeInfo!

Steve

 

Hi Steve,

Could you check your PM box I sent you a message.

Regards,

 

Shame on their schools for allowing this, which is the real root of this problem.

 

Earlier this year, I spent a day with Bradley Beesley, a documentary film maker who was making a one-hour film on Pellar/Dante. (His earlier documentary* was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and was shown on public TV channels, and they apparently had strong interest in this one.) He was next on his way to Bakersfield, where Pellar had agreed to be interviewed. I asked Beesley about it the following week, and all he would say was that the situation was 'challenging.'

I hope the film happens, and I hope it is in no way sympathetic, and that some of my stories and my anger are included. That's always the risk in giving long interviews; one never knows what will be used, and in what context. No one has ever treated me worse than Pellar did, and on at least four occasions.

____________
* A strange and wonderful thing called Okie Noodling, about the centuries-old art of catching 60-pound catfish by hand. Film trailer at http://www.okienoodling.com for those who need to know more.

 

It was very difficult from across the other side of the world to work out who was who in the US education system. I almost went with Columbia Pacific University, but decided to go with the then University of the State of New York. I don't really remember the reason, but I suspect it was the fact that the uni had been around since 1770. I figured that it must be real. I actually checked that fact in encyclopedias This was pre internet.

It was a very fortunate choice, three degrees later. This board finally sorted out what accreditation meant in the US. I could not initially see why state approval was inferior to regional accreditation. State approval is the highest level of approval in most countries. This board is highly useful to international students.

 

[ humour ] What is this thing you call an encyclopedia? [ /humour ]

Yeah, I remember using encyclopedia throughout high school (grades 7 to 12) including the rather large, heavy and densely written Encyclopedia Britannica. Thank goodness I discovered World Book before it was too late; much easier to read and understand.

 

This fellow is a potentially sympathetic fellow. He's very old, released from jail, living in a trailer, making artificial flowers to earn a few bucks. He appears to be self centered to his very core. He's been a dishonest con-man his whole life. He's ripped of many thousands of people. He shows zero remorse. I wouldn't be surprised if he's already started up another diploma mill. I too hope that any story done on him is not sympathetic.

 

You're being awfully polite calling it a "system".

It's more like a whole assortment of different overlapping and not always consistent systems. All 50 states (and DC etc.) have their own school licensing laws. And there's a whole managerie of private accreditors, some better regarded than others and many having specialized purposes.

The way that most American laypeople approach it is simply to identify legitimacy with accreditation and regional accreditation with accreditation. It isn't that Americans are trained in the arcane details of the US "system" (they aren't). Most people don't know anything about accreditation beyond the fact that it's something important. To them, accreditation is whatever all those universities that they have heard of have, and that turns out to be regional accreditation. So RA is effectively the de-facto national standard in the United States.

I flirted with the idea of enrolling in Columbia Pacific myself, back around 1980. Given how things subsequently unfolded, I'm glad I didn't.

The University of the State of New York isn't really a university at all, it's the peculiar historical name that the state's education department uses. It's real enough though, as is Regent's College (or whatever they called it before it became Excelsior) that this state agency helped create as an education experiment. (The college was and still is RA.) New York's state-owned/run university system is called the State University of New York (SUNY), which runs everything from research universities to community colleges. Regents College never became a unit of SUNY, I don't know why.

(To make things even more complicated in Gotham, New York City has its own system of municipal universities that are administratively separate from SUNY. The City University of New York, CUNY.)

I have to admit that until I started reading this board, I simply assumed that 'Regent's College of the University of the State of New York at Albany' was a sub-unit of 'State University of New York at Albany', an assumption that turned out to be false.

It's scary to think of what the 'less-than-wonderfuls' are telling prospective students in places like China. Government approval would just naturally be what people in highly-paternalistic societies expect to see. Government is what defines and guarantees legitimacy. In many countries private universities are less prestigious than state universities, often small, shady, underfunded and millish. So private accreditation would just naturally sound less desirable than state-recognition. And just as obviously, regional accreditation would sound less desirable than national accreditation.

Many unaccredited American "internet universities" find most of their students and revenue abroad and their accreditation pages promote all of these misunderstandings. They emphasize the school's state operating license as being what's really important and tell inquirers that accreditation is merely a private, voluntary and even controversial matter.

 

You are dead right about the confusion over the state and private accreditation. National accreditation was also a mystery. I could not see how national government recognition of a university could be viewed as less than regional accreditation. The logic of it is still difficult. The US government is seen as a such a powerful machine in the rest of the world. It would be automatically assumed that accreditation by that government would be the ultimate guarantee of quality.

There appears to be a lot of overlap in the accreditation stakes. I have found, however, the market focus by the US universities produces a more responsive and appoachable faculty. When I started on this journey in this country, I was a junior detective who worked very long hours and was given no consideration by the university I was enrolled with here. The attitude was that I was lucky to be accepted by them and I should just cope. Too bad if I didn't. Too bad if I missed an exam because of a murder investigation.

I found Regent's College far more supportive and I enjoyed learning. The credential became secondary and the learning became the primary interest for the first time ever. Things here have changed in a large number of the newer universities, but without the US approach, I would not have had a college level education.

Degree mills are undermining good US educational product and are bringing an otherwise good institutions (sometimes overpriced for distance learning) into disrepute. Get rid of them and maybe accreditation becomes a thing of less importance. This bloke has done more damage than his limited intelligence could ever realise. Like all crooks, he may have low cunning, but he is not intelligent. His life has lacked any worth. The world won't miss him.

 

Except that the U.S. Government doesn't do that. It doesn't accredit schools. It maintains lists of accreditors that are recognized agencies charged with accrediting schools. So......

If you want recognition by the U.S. Government, use its proxies (the recognized accrediting agencies). Treat state approval/authorization/licensing/etc. as little more than a business license--permission to operate.

This is why the "But it's leeeeeeeeeagle" crowd are full of crap. The true recognition of universities in the U.S. is done by recognized accreditation, which carries the weight of the U.S. Government behind it. (Noting CHEA recognition carries weight as well in the higher education industry.)

Simple as that. Want the central government's approval? Look for recognized accreditation. The end.

 

I would honestly be surprised if Pellar doesn't have a few dozen million stashed away somewhere and is simply laying low.

Given the money that Columbia State made, I would doubt that the Feds could have seized it all.

I'm also rather appalled that with 100 counts on the fake cosmetology thing that he is already out of prison, and even more so that he's not in prison on the Columbia State matter.

 

The cash and gold that "went missing from the yacht" had to go somewhere.

 

Remember that this property was seized by Mexican authorities. I wouldn't be surprised if they bothered to arrest him in the first place in order to steal what they could from him. Whether or not Ronald Pellar had funds hidden in some undiscovered bank someplace, I guess it is possible that he's waiting until he's off parole or something before he dips into that.