Century U: Who's right, Dr. Colleen or the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission?

I am agreeing with Bill Huffman that this matter deserves a thread of its own.
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Dr. Colleen (Ph.D. from Century) wrote:

Donald Breslow is no longer involved with Century university. Century operates 100% from New Mexico. There may have been a time only a few years ago where Breslow had some control and lived in California. This is no longer the case.
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John Bear replied:

Dr. Colleen, can you explain, then, why the New Mexico state records, as of this very morning (Nov. 18, 2002), show that the only two officers of Century University Inc. are:

President: Donald Breslow
Secretary: Marcella Breslow (his wife)

And the one and only Director is: Donald Breslow

http://www.nmprc.state.nm.us/cgi-bin/nmprc/prcdtl.cgi?1462910+

Further, Breslow is listed #1 (in a non-alphabetical list) on the current Century Educational Board of Governors.

In other words, he owns the damn place, and is #1 on the Board of Governors. That sounds a wee bit like involvement to me.
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Rich Douglas wrote:

Colleen--
What he (Bear) said. Unless, of course, you're an agent of the university and can speak on their behalf. (And, thus, belie the information New Mexico and Century provide.)
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Bill Huffman wrote:

The last time Century was discussed in this thread was last August and at that time I understood you to say that Donald Breslow was still the owner. Please elaborate on why and when this interesting change occurred.

You may want to respond by starting a new thread. I believe that this bit of news may deserve it.
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Door #1

Century University

No Connection with Donald Breslow

Source: Dr. Colleen (Ph.D. from Century)


Door #2

Century University

President and Owner: Donald Breslow

Source: State of New Mexico

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Ummmmm, its a tough choice guys.

 

Door #3:

Century University's Website with Breslow Listed on the Board of Governers

Source: Century University (likely connected to Century University )

 

BTW, as I've noted before, 8 of the 23 faculty listed earned their doctorates at Century, an unusually high percentage (35%) not normally found when observing a university's entire faculty.

Also, Century claims to have awarded more than 12,000 degrees. That's about 500 per year, even at their reckoning. With a full-time faculty at 5--and no recollection of it ever being significantly higher or lower--that's about 100 graduates per year per full-time faculty person. Wow! Even if the adjuncts all shared the load equally--and there's no reason to believe that--we still get about 22 graduates per year per faculty member. Given that adjuncts come and go, and that the total number of them has probably not been too much higher than now claimed, that's still a huge number. Really huge.

 

This listing is also found in the 2002-2004 General Catalog.

 

It appears to me that Dr. Colleen's statement was probably unintentionally misleading. My theory is that Dr. Colleen saw the old thread that had been reactivated. In the old thread was an off-hand mention of Century. Dr. Colleen read the old thread and had forgotten that Rich's offhand statement had essentially been laid to rest. In an apparent fit of zeal to lay to rest the idea that Century was run from California, I'm guessing that Dr. Colleen grossly overstated the lack of involvement the owner and big boss plays at Century. Perhaps the intent of the statement was that the big cheese is no longer involved in the daily tasks of running Century and that daily management is done completely from the office in New Mexico.

Unfortunately Dr. Colleen is apparently not available to tell use what the real intent was. I admit that I'm just speculating on how the false statement could be made by an intelligent person.

 

This is a good one, Bill, I literally belly laughed when I read it.

 

Wow! My name on a degreeinfo thread. It doesn't get any better than this. Sorry for the late response.

Bill is correct. I should have read the entire thread before responding and would have realized I had responded previously. I have been in contact with Century in the last couple months (getting information on their Certified Consultant program) and in that conversation was told Breslow's involvement is very limited. The operations are in New Mexico. All Century's full time staff have Ph.D.s from institutions other than Century. All of these are RA as well.

I hope everyone has a great holiday.

 

Thanks for the reponse and best wishes, best wishes over the holidays to you and everyone else, as well.

Dr. Colleen, I hope you don't mind, I am curious whether or not you have received the anticipated utility out of your Century degree? What expectations have been met and what, if any, unsatisfied utility have you run into?

Thanks in advance for your response.

 

Bill,

I didn't go into the program with particular expectations. I work for a health care company and wanted a degree or course work in health care. Before pursuing the Ph.D., my degrees were in business only. I wanted and felt I needed that health care background. I was pleased with the program because I could steer the direction as long as I stayed within the guidelines. I received congratulations from friends, family and coworkers, which is always nice. I usually do not refer to myself as "doctor" because I work with Medical Directors that have M.d.s and I don't want there to be any confusion. I use Ph.D. on letters and emails. Take care.

 

Is century state recognised like CCU?
If not its a
"DEGREE MILL" "MILL"

 

Mr./Ms. manjuap,

It depends how you define "recognized". Do you mean accredited by a DOA authorized body, licensed, approved? If you are referring to CCU, you may mean, state licensed (as CCU is state licensed in Ca). Century is licensed by the state of New Mexico to award degrees.

If it is not, you are saying it is a "DEGREE MILL" "MILL". That would make it a double mill, like "double secret probation". Sounds very bad.

 

Coleen,

How was the Century Ph.D. program structured? For example:

1. How many semester hours were required?
2. How were the individual courses designed? Reading/Writing Papers? Proctored Exams?
3. What was the length of your dissertation in pages?
4. Did you work with a dissertation committee through the research/writing process?


Thanks,

 

One aspect that many consider critical for the awarding of a Ph.D. is whether or not the research and theory work done by the candidate has significantly furthered the knowledge in the area of study. I have further seen it argued that it is practically impossible for this to occur at an unaccredited school. It would therefore follow that an unaccredited school is not able to grant bona fide Ph.D. degrees.

I'm throwing this out more to get a feeling from Dr. Colleen as to what the general reaction is to her Ph.D. when people learn that it is unaccredited?

 

russel,

There were 40 credit hours consisting of 13 courses and the dissertation. Yes, I worked with my individual advisor every step of the way throughout each chapter of the dissertation. She has a Ph.D. from the Union and indicates the dissertation structure and depth of research and writing is the same as what was required for her degree. In health care there are many avenues to take, a more clinical approach, financial or, administrative to name a few. I was to research three Ph.D. programs at different colleges, select the track, select twelve courses from these schools. An additional research course was also required, which made 13 courses. I chose the Wharton School of Business program, Harvard Business School, and the U of Alabama. They all had interesting health care programs.

 

Bill,

Why would it be impossible? My dissertation results were actually put into practice by my company. So, in a sense they were building on my research. We are tracking results and are looking to expand the project. I have had other companies ask about our project as well.

 

Thank you for responding, Coleen. What was the title and length (# of pages) of your dissertation?

How were the 13 individual courses designed, i.e., did you take proctored exams, did you read/research/write, etc.? Did your advisor state that in her opinion the coursework was also on par with Union courses?

 

The argument, as I understand it is that, it might be considered impossible because it must push back the frontier of academic knowledge. In order to do that it would need to be published in a manner that would be accessible to other researchers, e.g., UMI. I have heard stories where some students had to spend a number of months traveling to other research universities and present their findings. Ph.D. students and professors at research institutions that are GAAP would likely not ever hear about the research of a Ph.D. graduate from an unaccredited institution therefore it is difficult to see how the contribution could have made a significant contribution to the academic knowledge of mankind.

 

tom,

I'll have to check, but I may be mistaken and it could be 60 credits. I have heard of GAAP Ph.D program that are dissertation and research only.