At Colloquy Live, the Chronicle's live chat forum Alan Contreras was the guest for "Fighting Fakery.' Thursday, June 24, at 2 p.m., U.S. Eastern time. There is a transcript at: http://chronicle.com/colloquylive/2004/06/diploma/
Thanks, Carlos. An interesting read. Something that caught my eye was AC's idea of a "model code" for state approvals. Nice to see something from the Chronic Hell for those of us who can't afford the bloody thing.
And today's award for best effort in setting up and then knocking down multiple straw men goes to Darryl Stonewell: "It's hard for me to believe that tens of thousands of people are all being duped by diploma mills, when it's so easy to check on a university. It's not hard to check them out in chat rooms and with the BBB, and it's obvious which ones are mills. So why does the government like Oregon's have to come in and confuse matters even further by lumping all online universities in the diploma mill category when they can't all be mills? It just makes things more confusing and limits people's choices." I suspect that this paragraph would qualify as a doctoral disseration at some of Mr. (Dr.?) Stonewell's favorite schools.