other Ph.D.s from Trinity College & University

In this thread, FNHayes wrote:

"The Trinity College and University - Available Degrees [...]
We will award degrees in any subject, except medicine, the following are examples of degrees we have already awarded. [...]
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.)
Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Doctor of Music (D.Mus.)
Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Doctor of Divinity (D.D.)"
-- http://www.trinityeducation.com/available.html#doctorate
The Wayback Machine at http://www.archive.org shows the same text from http://trinityuni.org/degree.htm, dating back to 1998.

"Trinity College & University [...]
College credit for what you know. [...]
Quick, Legal, and Confidential.
No classroom attendance required!
Bachelors, Masters, MBA, and Ph.D. offered."
-- http://www.trinity-college.edu.pk/

"Trinity College & University [...]
Many students entering our graduate degree program have some formal graduate education and advanced work experiences for which credit can be granted toward the MBA, MA, MSc or Ph.D. degree."
-- http://www.degreeconsultants.com/graduate.html

"Trinity College and University - Providing Bachelors, Masters, and PhD's based on your previous life experience.
(Added: Mon Jan 01 2001"
-- http://www.biolinks.org/Colleges___Universities/Europe/Spain/more3.html

"Yes, I was awarded the Ph.D. [from TC&U] for life experience and for life accomplishment, and I make no attempt to conceal it. I was awarded the Legion of Merit in Vietnam for similar reasons. If that makes it 'bogus', so be it."
-- Tom Bearden, http://www.greaterthings.com/News/FreeEnergy/Directory/Beware/Bearden_Bogus_PhD/#Bearden_Admits

"MOHAMAD BASHAR ARAFAT, Ph.D.
[...] In 1999, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Theology from Trinity College and University."
-- http://www.civilizationsexchange.org/Biography.cfm

"Dr Mohammed Faruk Hosain, MBA (Finance), MBA (MIS), PhD, the dissertataion of PhD, Trinity College & University"
-- http://www.collegetermpapers.com/TermPapers/Computers/MIS_Core_Concepts_.shtml

"IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE A COPY OF THE TRINITY COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY DISSERTATION REQUIREMENTS I WILL BE HAPPY TO EMAIL A COPY."
-- FNHayes, http://www.degreeinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6806

 

There is, however, a possible clarification for this given that the once-united TCU in Delaware split in two in the mid-90s, with one part moving first to South Dakota, now to the British Virgin Islands (although it is still run from the US), and the other to Spain.

The Spanish Trinity grants doctorates.

But, according to its website, the other Trinity doesn't - it only goes as far as the MBA. That one, I assume, is Dr Hayes' alma mater. If www.trinity-college.edu.pk is its extension, though, there is a contradiction here.

The BVI Trinity seems to put rather greater emphasis on the appearance of academic process in its marketing than its Spanish counterpart. It was the Spanish Trinity that begat the non-wonderful Gardner's College (*NO-ONE IS TURNED DOWN*) in 2002 or so.

Both Trinities were once part of the United Interdenominational Church in Delaware. That affiliation seems to have been dropped, but it still appeared on a Spanish TCU diploma that I was shown issued last year.

 

Thanks for this important info!

> But, according to its website, the other Trinity
> doesn't - it only goes as far as the MBA.

I grant that it has a list of "Available Degrees" that does not include doctorates. But are you confident that, if you offered them enough money, they would turn you down?

Also note the text I cited from 1998. Is that from before the split?

 

Actually, the U.S. version operated from Louisiana for a while before getting the mailbox in South Dakota. When forced out of SD, they again had a Louisiana mailbox address (for about four days), before dropping any mention of their whereabouts.

Gus Payne was involved with the U.K. version for a time. That both entities have, at various times, had notices on their respective sites disclaiming affiliation with one another lends itself to some interesting speculation as to how U.S. TC&U came about.

This is a fairly recent development (~the past two years). Prior to that, doctorates were available along with the rest of the products.

This also is fairly new, having begun with a list of courses, borrowed verbatim, from the Thomas Edison State College web site, right down to the course numbers.

The UIC was apparently a fictional umbrella under which cover the U.K. TC&U implied that it was an American school.

 

I wrote:
> But, according to its website, the other Trinity
> doesn't - it only goes as far as the MBA.

Mark wrote:
QUOTE
I grant that it has a list of "Available Degrees" that does not include doctorates. But are you confident that, if you offered them enough money, they would turn you down?
UNQUOTE

Extremely unconfident! But I think there's a serious point here, in that Dr Hayes appears to have taken what Trinity told him via its website and degree requirements at face value (I'm not trying to put words in his mouth, just going on his posts here). The difficulty is that it is only with detailed knowledge of the DL field that the problems with TCU become apparent.

Even then, those problems aren't even legal problems, they are ethical ones (would a court find that Dr Hayes' PhD was fraudulently obtained or illegally awarded? I very much doubt it.) In contrast to many who seek degrees from less-than-wonderful schools on the basis of an easy ride, Dr Hayes has done serious, substantial work in his field that *if* it were assessed responsibly *might* well be adjudged to be academically valid. I can understand how he came to believe Trinity was the answer to his wishes, even if by now it must be obvious that there are serious problems in that regard. Still I have a hard time believing that Dr Hayes is in the wrong here, rather than Trinity. When someone does serious work for a degree (even if they don't have to), they've committed an act of faith that has some merit to it. That doesn't mean that a Trinity PhD per se is academically worth anything, but nor does it invalidate the fact that in Dr Hayes' case it's maybe worth more than the negligible value it would usually have.

Add to that that these problems aren't necessarily problems for Dr Hayes. As he says, he's gained considerable benefit from his degree. The difficulty that generally arises with such degrees tends to be a) a loss of respect (which depends how much importance you attach to that respect, and from whom it comes) and b) the risk of professional disadvantage. If he can avoid these /) then he might claim justifiably that his investment has served him well. Perhaps it's a lesson to us, too, not to tar all graduates from what we would see as diploma mills with the same brush.

Mark wrote:
Also note the text I cited from 1998. Is that from before the split?
UNQUOTE

I don't have my *Trinity file* before me, but I think the split was in about 1995/96. Someone here will know for sure (Dr Bear?)

The man in charge in Delaware was one Anthony Peel-Bayley. He was as I understand it sought by the Delaware authorities who had a few awkward questions to put to him, and decided that a spell abroad might be good for his health. He's now in charge of the Trinity in sunny Spain. There has been speculation that the Spanish version merely took the name of the US version without authority, and then re-incorporated under the different jurisdiction, hence causing the fall-out, but such speculation remains *unproven* as yet

An address in Metairie, LA, is still given on the contacts page of the BVI Trinity, by the way.

Bill's other comments should give anyone new to it a fair idea of what TCU is all about.

 

The TC&U trade name was registered in Louisiana in November, 1998. I have a very poor quality .jpg of the incorporation certificate, which was probably accomplished at the same time. (I'll post this if anyone wishes to see it.) How much earlier than this the split actually occurred is, I suspect, known only to the principals.

The incorporation in South Dakota was accomplished under the Degree Consultants name, presumably to avert problems arising from superficial scrutiny.

The U.S. Trinity crowd also have their hands in other mills, just as Doctor Marianus notes about Gardner's and U.K. Trinity above. Ashington University, with a northern England business services address and a web site sporting a half dozen Union Jacks, funnelled credit card payments directly back to Delray Beach. Ashington was followed by Brown's International University, which, as previously noted in the archived threads, contained an application page from which they had forgotten to scrub Trinity's name. There are quite a few bits of evidence to suggest that they are also involved with Almeda C&U. The newest effort is apparently going to be named Trinity Christian College, Inc. Although I have yet to locate a web site for it, the entity was incorporated earlier this year.

 

Dr Marianus is perfectly correct - Mark's comments refer solely to the Spanish version of TCU, which is apparently doing very big business, but even there you cannot 'order' a degree. You must
first receive their enrolment form, complete it and post your CV and portfolio to Spain for consideration.
Prior to enrolling with the USA version of TCU I'd extracted info on them from a particularly well known book on DL education.
All my dealings with TCU appeared to be very genuine and I had many discussions, both by email and by phone, with a pleasant
and seemingly well informed lady. (Some people tell me I'm easily conned by females!) It was not until I discussed TCU (USA) with
John Bear that I was informed that I'd been conned. From memory
I said to Dr Bear that I was not going to suicide over it! And since then the whole exercise has proven to be well worth while - particlarly for brown teal.
One thing I did learn years ago is that unless the information you are trying to promote appears in published form very few people are receptive to it, or take any notice at all.
The fact that the BTCT was able to send its manual to a number of important Government Ministers, to the heads of various Government Departments, to environmental groups, numerous overseas waterfowl organisations and important individuals, etc., and be taken very seriously, was indeed a very valuable contribution to the brown teal programme.
Dr Anatidae

 

FNHayes wrote:

> It was not until I discussed TCU (USA) with
> John Bear that I was informed that I'd been conned.

I consider this extremely important: one of our most vociferous defenders of what the rest of us consider "less-than-wonderful schools" admits that he was conned by his school.

> From memory I said to Dr Bear that I was not going to suicide
> over it!

No one's asked you to do that.

> And since then the whole exercise has proven to be well
> worth while - particlarly for brown teal.

If a species was saved, I'm very happy. Now, can we save some people from being conned?

 

I agree with Dr Marianus. BTW, I've read Dr Hayes' dissertation. Admittedly, I am NOT trained in his field, but having read piles of disses in my own field(s) and having closely watched colleagues writing theirs--successfully--I think what he wrote is a genuine doctoral-level work. My doubts about TC&U are multitudinous, but after seeing eminently RA disses like "The cuisine of incestuous crypto-paedophilia in Seneca's Thyestes" (OK, OK, I made that one up, but you get the idea), Dr Hayes has nothing to be embarrassed about in the caliber of his own work.
The "school" is another matter entirely.

 

Thank you for those kind words Uncle.
Dr Anatidae

 

As I've said before, the quality of a student's work is never the issue. Rather, it is the institution that awards the degree.

I have no doubt that some Columbia State (the biggest degree mill ever) victims wrote some decent dissertations. However, their degrees are just as worthless as any other internet degree scam.

You can write the ultimate dissertation in your field, but unless the institution awarding the degree is legitimately accredited, it's not going to be worth anything.

 

Okay Bruce, the degree itself may be of little value in the eyes of
people promoting accredited universities, or those relying on their income from accredited universities, but the fact remains that valuable material has been produced, and will continue to be produced, from uaccredited sources. And such material has been, and will continue to be, widely recognised in commerce, industry, the militaria, the wildlife arena, etc., and even in tradtional academia. Accreditation is certainly not the be-all and end-all of Distance Learning. If it was DegreeInfo would be a very boring forum!
Dr Anatidae