DL verse Traditional

There has been plenty of discussion about DL verse Traditional schools. For the most part, we have heard remarks about DL’s graduates are not as marketable as opposed to graduates from Traditional schools.

Upon viewing the The Union Institute ‘s web site, alumni relation’s section, I was astonished to have seen how successful their graduates have been in the higher education field. There is Union Institute graduate who is teaching at Yale University and others are teaching at other reputable schools.
http://www.tui.edu/Alumni/GCalumsHigherEd.pdf

 

There are a number of DL graduates that have done well in industry and academe. For many in the academic world, a doctorate was a requirement to get a job - but their industry experience and teaching skills are their real saleable credentials.

Before I started the NSU program I called a number of NSU grads to see how their careers were going. Some were at high caliber schools - such as Penn State, but many were at middle tier teaching schools.

Thanks - andy

------------------
Andy Borchers, DBA
NSU (1996)

 

I don't know about other folks listed in the PDF alumni document, but one person that jumps out at me is Dee Mundschenk Aker, with her degree in "Humanistic Psychology" and presidency of the "University for Humanistic Studies, Del Mar." What's up with that? The school's Web site, humanistic.edu, doesn't work, and the only address I can find for the school is a P.O. box in Rosemead, California.

Whatever the reality or worth of the Del Mar university, I notice in the list of alumni for the Union Institute what strikes me as a high number of graduates with psychology degrees of various, seemingly unlimited, stripes. It's interesting that so many people getting distance education degrees get degrees in psychology. And degree-mill operators seem to have a lot of their own degrees in psychology. Hmmm....

Another person on the alumni list has a degree in "Fire Services Administration." However wonderful that field may be, and however wonderful the work the individual may be doing, isn't it a bit ridiculous to get a degree with such specificity in the name of the field, which seems designed to win one a specific job. It seems to be all for show. I can see a degree in "Business Administration" or "Civil Administration," with much of one's expertise in fire services, but "Fire Services Administration"?

 

Not than Andy implied that there is anything wrong with being a "middle tier teaching school", but I thought that I would mention that many more schools fall into this area than fall into the Ivy League (or schools of that status).

As it happens, were I to do doctorate (which ain't gonna happen!), I would much prefer to be at one of the middle tier or even a lower tier school primarily because:

a. tiers and prestige mean very little to me; and

b. because of my particular teaching area, I think the better teaching jobs *for me* are often in such places.


Tom Nixon

 

The University for Humanistic Studies has been operating a residential, California-Approved program since the early 1980's. BG 14 reported they seemed dormant, with no phone listed at their Solana Beach address. (Solana Beach is right near Del Mar.) While the school has struggled financially, there is nothing to connote a degree mill. My two visits to their campuses (once in Old Town San Diego on San Diego Avenue and the other in Del Mar on Jimmy Durante Avenue) were excellent. They were professional, offering a limited array of programs primarily focused on licensure of counselors and psychologists. If I recall correctly, their Ph.D. in psychology required 3 years of classroom study plus the dissertation.

Their website at www.humanistic.edu appears down. I don't know if they are still in operation.

Regarding Union's wide array of psychology types: exactly. This is the strength of the Union program, it's interdisciplinary nature. In fact, they recently spun off the psychology program. It runs like a different school, certainly without all the flair of the Union. The demand for doctorates in psychology has always been strong. According to the psychology students I met during my Union program, many were doing their degrees to qualify for 3rd-party insurance payments, while many others were interested in licensure as psychologists. According to a Union professor I spoke with over the weekend, about 200 of the 1,200 current Union doctoral learners are doing their degrees in the psychology program.

What's the beef with Fire Services Administration? I see on p. 383 of BG 14 11 accredited schools offering degrees in that area (all in the U.S., BTW). And that's just the programs that are relevant to DL. I suspect them to be valuable to fire fighter supervisors and those that aspire to become supervisors. They certainly seem to think so. Who are we to argue?

It might be helpful to do some research into the history of this field, along with some looking into the multitude of facets it provides, before jumping to so many conclusions.

Rich Douglas

 

I think that the point of view of this discussion/issue is not how to scrutinized one particular person since he/she did not achieve a more conventional academic discipline, but how more DL students/graduates are being accepted in the academia industry.

As an employer, do you think I really care where did a job applicant received his/her credentials. As long as it nationally accredited, and the person has the aptitude to perform the task on hand, takes precedence over someone that perhaps graduated from a traditional school, but lacks the skills necessary to perform the job successfully.

 

The comment you are making is probably similar to my own thinking, which led me to use the "however this, however that" phraseology. I don't think I'm "jumping to so many conclusions." While I thank you for your additional information, a program offered by 11 accredited schools sounds a bit obscure to me. However that may be, I personally do not particularly believe in advanced degrees, whether from accredited or unaccredited schools, whether distance learning or otherwise. I think that most degrees, including the "fire services administration" degree I mentioned are largely pompous and phony bits of pretension designed to get jobs through the "earning" of "credentials," largely through time-serving and meaningless or pointless classes. Most jobs involve skills that can be learned on the job, skills which in fact often can only be learned on the job.

In any case, let's take a more usual field--radiology. I worked in a hospital once upon a time, doing secretarial work in a radiology department. I believe my boss had received some sort of radiology training, but was basically a "radiology administrator." Everyone at hospitals who has an excuse to wear white coats likes to do so, and she would make a point of wearing her own white coat, in order to look more important and feel more important. She even received some magazine with a name like "Radiology Administrator's Monthly." All of this was part of a mentality that I despise--professionalizing cheesy or obscure fields in order to demand more money. Except for the radiology component, which naturally demands special training, the woman was a glorified secretary or office manager. It was just ridiculous.

95-99% of the people who look at this Web sit may think that the pursuit of such degrees and titles in obscure and even one-off (limited to just that one degree recipient) disciplines may be just super. But I don't. That goes for "fire services administration," that goes for "radiology adminstration," that goes for perhaps the majority of degrees earned in "higher education," including such popular fields as law, etc.

 

Truly a breath of fresh air. Iconoclastic and insightful. I believe that if one must play this advanced credential game however, at least legitimate unaccredited schools offer the lower classes an expanded opportunity to play. Someone from the working class may actually do something productive in a higher position. By the way, I have served as a male secretary, so I am used to being in a small minority.

Gary

 

Regardless of what you believe, the fact is that a doctorate is pretty much required if you want to teach full-time above the community college level. More than one of my professors referred to his doctorate as the "union card" for tenured jobs.

Bruce

 

I'm sure you are correct, but most people who pursue higher degrees seem to be middle class types who wish to pose as "professionals" in order to increase their incomes. In saying that, I'm basically just re-stating what I've already said. The thing that gets to me about what is going on is that you have reasonably middle-class mid-level managerial types, etc., who can often, without any additional fripperies, can expect to receive salaries of $35,000-$65,000 (which, by any normal standard is a pretty good income), yet manage to get more by earning (or buying) degrees. This goes on while the "lower orders" doing maid work or low-level office jobs are often not paid enough to live satisfying lives, and don't have the time or money (even if they were paying for some wonderfully economical distance-learning education) to advance themselves. For example, a couple of years ago I was studying in a graduate school in another state. The maids were always hanging around, to an extent that must have gone way beyond 40 hours a week. I looked at the cruddy jobs they did, and thought of the way they were always hanging around, and pictured them taking home what I would call largish salaries of $30,000-$45,000 for these jobs because of their "overtime." I later looked at the university's annual expenses. These women made from $12,000-$16,000 a year for full-time, disgusting work. They probably hung around all the time at the university because the atmosphere was a lot nicer than it was in the ghettos where they almost undoubtedly lived. And while they earned low salaries, you had many, many full professors and administrators earning in the $85,000-$95,000 range (and up, of course). Cutting the "higher ups'" salaries by $5,000 and upping the salaries of lowly maids and secretaries by $1,000 would bring much more benefit to the latter than harm for the former.

Most people's intellects and personalities do not suit them for academia, even to the extent of studying as undergraduates. I am very intelligent and quite well educated, but I think that I got nothing out of my undergraduate degree except the knowledge of how to correctly pronounce "Thackeray." While demanding higher education of pretty much everyone may do a hair more good in that it makes various philistines (the general run of humanity) slightly less jerky than they otherwise would be, this education industry is part of what is destroying American society. You have anyone with some degree (so to speak) of authority, such as CEOs and mid-level managers doing all they can to paint themselves as hard-charging, endlessly competent professionals, no matter how impossibly lousy they may be at their jobs, while people at the bottom of the economic ladder are refused even the means to support themselves decently. It's fundamentally immoral. You have CEOs making tens of millions of dollars while the people on the factory floor are making $15,000. You have academics and mid-level managers making $50,000-$80,000 while the secretaries and cleaning ladies make $15,000-$25,000.

I don't want to get into arguments about the low, low salaries that academics get, or think they get. A lot of them are also treated unjustly. But a lot are simply spoiled and self-seaking. I certainly feel more for the plight of underpaid and exploited TAs than I do for various full and associate professors.

 

Exploited? No, slaves were exploited. Women were exploited. When a college student chooses to become a TA, that isn't exploitation, that's called taking an opportunity. I can't imagine being "exploited" at a university! And who is doing the exploiting, if anyone? Former TAs!

This has been the most off-topic post I've seen in a long time that didn't intend to be so. I'm sure it was just a stream of consciousness, but it was posted so I responded.

Rich Douglas
"That's not writing. That's just typing!" Truman Capote

 

Mr. Douglas, I find your response really rude. My initial message on this page dealt with my response to someone's mention of a page listing the wondrous accomplishments of people who got a degree from a distance learning university. I included questions and comments which people could respond to in informative, thoughtful ways. Your earlier response to my opinions didn't give show much respect for my opinions and that made me reply further. Someone else had something to say about the plight of the woebegone academic, and I responded further. I think that hardly constitutes egregious off-topicality. It's called a discussion. This thread hardly seems to be the most earth-shaking from beginning to end, and if people wander into different aspects of education, so what? I think that happens in pretty much every thread on this site, just as it happens in newsgroups generally. Why don't you contact the people who run this site and demand that everyone limit their comments to definite facts in ceaselessly displined and organized threads?

I find your attacking my opinions just because they are opinions to be ludicrous. A lot of what I have said is clearly my opinion. Do I have to preface everything with "this is only my opinion, but..."? When I express an opinion, I think it's pretty clear that it is my opinion and not, say, a statistic from such-and-such poll or brain trust. And my "assertions" do have a basis--my own thoughts about and reactions to what I have seen in the world. I don't think that is as worthless as you clearly do.

Regarding the underpaid maids at my graduate school, you again, as in your earlier post, fail to consider the language I used, which was couched in somewhat vague and indefinite terms to convey that, no, I DON'T know everthing about these people's lives. But as I've said, they "almost undoubtedly" do live in ghettos. The school (where I lived) was in a ghetto, in a city with vast ghettos and a vast underclass population and the maids made $12,000-$16,000 a year. I don't think it's much of a jump to assume that underpaid, clearly unhappy people, with these attendant facts, are living in ghettos. You might just assume that I know a little bit about my own life and experiences rather than trying to find more for which you would like to attack me.

I doubt your arguments about people making more money because they make more money are particularly well argued. I agree that earning degrees often demonstrates the same talents that win one promotions and I higher pay. And I believe that those talents are cynicism, manipulativeness, exploitativeness, and a shameless desire to milk the system. I don't think that's very wonderful.

Nowhere have I said that maids or secretaries should get the same salaries as CEOs or full professors. I believe that there is a minimum salary of, say, $20,000-$30,000 that everyone in this country should get just so that they can live decent lives. The fact that there are too many people living in poverty is a reflection of the fact that the CEOs and "senior corporate trainers for the largest telecommunications companies in the world" are hogging the nation's resources. The government, with its taxes, is NOT adequately helping the poor. While you clearly believe that Bush's policies are great, the government is doing all it can to enrich people who are already rich. And I've heard about a lot of studies for years that state that when government "charity" is removed it is NOT replaced by private charity. This country is more similar to a lot of two-class third-world countries than it is to much of the advanced, western world because of such limitless greed.

I will continue to believe that TAs are often exploited. I think that being overworked and underpaid (or not paid) and getting no benefits, work that is often NECESSARY to get through a program either because of extreme financial necessity or academic/political reasons, while doing the same work as highly paid professors is the definition of exploitation.

You've told me what research you think I haven't done, that I've "jumped to conclusions," that I've had "opinions," that I've made "assertions without any basis on fact," that I'm a socialist, that I'm a racist, and that everything I write is mere "stream of consciousness." You've used an insulting quotation from Truman Capote, and you've used patronizing, condescending, and insulting little touches like asking, "Get it?"

I have a right to my opinions. My opinions have some worth. And I express them well. Now do you, sir, "Get It"?

 

Before you get too stuck into Mr Douglas, just remeber that he has forgotten more than you'll ever proabably learn. Actually i do wonder as to what your true learning capability is ... unless it is in the skills of heckling for rent-a-crowd.

But I jest. You make really good points - stick to them as they will get you far.

I became a CPA the 'apprenticeship way' in the 60's and when I left that field to go into education at the end of the 80's I was taking home between $50K and $75K a month. My first teaching job paid $46K a year and I made another $90K a year consulting. The more degrees I got the less I made, and now i sit on about $100K with a wall full of framed paper.

Does that have anything to do with your thesis? No, as it is not meant to. It does however highlight the fact that the accumulation of degrees and attainment of academic position means that some of us get poorer. As poor as the maids you refer to? But maids are all poor, and that is why they are maids. If everyone could improve themselves through education, who the hell would make my breakfast and my bed?

I am not unaware of the needy nor do I neglect them. I actually house some of them at concessional rentals. However, whether you like it or not, there are classes in every society and there are elites. Some people choose not to better themselves as they see no need to, and I respect that. I just don't live in the same suburb as them. Others choose not to better themselves because they expect people to hand it to them on a plate, and I despise them. Thye don't deserve to live in any suburb.

Your theories would be much appreciated in other lands - had you ever thought of chnaging continents?

In the meantime google may help you find a more suitable forum for your views - this one is about distance education, and improving people's chnaces to improve themselvs through education. I know that is a lot to grasp ...

Peter French

 

I do. When you wish to describe situations, please do so factually. Then your opinions and judgments will stand out as such. And, of course, they will be as equally uninformed. But they will be yours to have and to state. (And for others to dispute. Or am I not entitled to the same privilege you seek?)

Rich Douglas

 

As a card-carrying member of the "education industry", I beg to differ. Few rational human beings would accept that education per se, is a "bad thing". If you mean that the headlong pursuit of credentials, without truly achieving and embracing the learning process that is necessary to acquire such credentials is a "bad thing", then I might partially agree with you. The beauty of DL is that it affords individuals who made inadequate choices (by their own definition) in their personal educational opportunities the chance to "catch up" with the rest.

Long live education!

Mark

 

Mr. Douglas, you continue to insist on insulting me. None of your above insults, and all of your messages include them, are necessary. You could state your different opinions without attacking my own intelligence and abilities. None of what you have expressed particularly requires a direct attack on anything I have said. You could simply state your own, differing views. This site is supposed to be for people of good will who have faith in the good will (and basic intelligence) of others. You seem to have a long history of indulging in "flame wars," and I enjoy those much less than you do. The response from "mamorse" is a better example of a decent, considerate response. But don't feel a need to respond to what I'm saying. What would we be the point? And I'd hate for you to waste your time on me when you could be doing something worthwhile, like watching the intellectual giant Sean Hannity on his television show Hannity & Colmes .

Mr. French, I don't understand your inclusion of similarly gratuitous insults. I thought your participation in a recent and extreme "flame war" was supposed to be a deviation required for certain detective work. And, yes, I have thought of moving to other continents, and will continue to think about that.

 

There's nothing wrong with being middle class. Everyone wants to increase his or her income, including all of the rich and poor as well as the middle class. And if education isn't part of becoming a professional, then what is?

I worked my way through my BA program by doing catering work and the like. It's entirely possible to get a degree by working and studying part-time, and that leads to increased opportunities down the line. Vast numbers of students do it every semester.

Why is it that the political champions of the poor are so universally adamant that the poor can do nothing at all to improve their own lives? It's as if the poor must be forever preserved in a childlike and helpless state.

The point is that people like maids are often in the position of earning low wages because they are unskilled. They are unable to perform any other services that other people need and are willing to pay them more money for. The way for them to escape from that situation is to upgrade their skills. That doesn't necessarily mean a college degree, but it might mean getting some vocational education.

In fact, changes in the economy are making it increasingly necessary for everyone to periodically upgrade his or her knowledge and skills. That will often mean taking classes. It's not some degrading horror that the poor must endure, nor is it some evil conspiracy of the bourgeosie. It is simply a fact of life in the 21'st century.

Don't dispair. Come the Revolution, everyone with a degree will be shot. (Except the Marxist intellectuals of course.)

 

Attacking your WHAT?

Oh! ) ))

 

Thank you for this additional example of sparkling wit.

 

My pleasure.

Next time around, pick your continent and generation or decade better.