University Response to Profs with Bogus Degrees

I did a little Googling for some popular degree mills and unaccredited schools, and narrowed the search to degreeholders connected to universities in Canada. I identified about six professors who held bogus degree in one particular school. I sent the Department Heads and the President of the school detailed explanations of why the degrees were bogus. At this particular university the Department Heads ignored my e-mails, but the President put forward the novel idea that these profs were hired for their expertise, and that the bogus degrees were irrelevant. His actual final answer follows:

In short, he doesn't give a damn if his school's profs list doctorates from Columbia Pacific, Pacific Western, and Warnborough. He does not think this issue is important and he's certainly not going to do anything about it.

I'm looking for comments on this situation...

 

Man,
The degree and professor are the different things. You can be a professor without any doctorate.
Doctorate is the evidence of your education level at one milestone.
Professor is the evidence of your credential at one university and professor title can be withheld if your expertise is not good enough.

 

"Man
The degree and professor are the different things. You can be a professor without any doctorate.
Doctorate is the evidence of your education level at one milestone.
Professor is the evidence of your credential at one university and professor title can be withheld if your expertise is not good enough"

Generally you cannot become a full-time tenured professor at a legitimate university (excluding community colleges of course) without a Doctorate. The fact of the matter here is that these teachers hold fake degrees and they chose to represent them publicly. It makes one want to question their integrity as well as the integrity of the instution who employs them.

 

A critical question that arises from accredited schools hiring unaccredited faculty is its impact on students' motivation to engage in the rigorous and expensive process to obtain an accredited degree. For instance what kind of model does an unaccredited faculty serve when students observe that he/she can teach at an accredited university with an unaccredited degree? So the question arises as to why should a student be motivated to spend the time, energy and money to go the legitimate route when he/she can attend a fast track and cheaper unaccredited degree program, obtain a bogus advanced credential and then apply for a faculty position at the accredited school?

I experienced this very situation at a major distance learning program that resulted in the removal of two unaccredited faculty as student mentors. This caused quite a stir and the chairperson at the time was extremely miffed at my stand. However, I made it clear that if anyone is going to be assigned as my mentor they should possess the requisite legtimate doctorates that I was paying for and expected! I also made it clear that these unaccredited faculty reflected on the perception of the value of my doctorate. Futhermore if a faculty in actuality ONLY possessed the same education level (masters degree) as myself YET posed as possessing a doctorate on what basis would I be able to respect his/her feedback and mentorship relating to completing a scholarly dissertation?

 

While there is no question about Warnborough, I wouldn't necessarily classify Columbia Pacific (which was highly thought-of by John Bear in its early days) and Pacific Western (CA-Approved) as "bogus". Sub-standard, perhaps.

Of course, there is no better disinfectant than sunshine, so maybe a call to a local investigative reporter will get the administration's attention better than a single e-mail.

 

This is really serious. Most faculties in Canada are unionized, an email to the union reps would be more effective than one to the President (I imagine you mean probost).

Faculty unions normally supervise that members have the minimum requirements to teach at the university level.

Are these faculty members full time faculty or adjunct? A master's degree is the minimum requirement for part time or adjunct positions while a PhD is the norm for full time positions so it is always possible that the professor was hired based on a legit master's degree.

Finally, an email to the association to the universities and colleges of canada would be more effective. They are normally very responsive and I'm sure that they will look into this matter. Their web site is www.aucc.ca


I really doubt that the faculty members in question are full time tenure based. The issues is that the PhD is normally necessary to apply for federal and provincial grants so any of these agencies would have caught any phony degree.

 

Athabasca University

Yes, they could do with a little sunshine - even though they get near-continuous daylight at this time of year. The school is Althabasca University, in Canada.

The President (yes President - not Provost, in this case) declined to discuss Warnborough and Pacific Western specifically, but says he checked the graduation dates of the profs with Columbia Pacific degrees, and is satisfied they are "legitimate" because they are "pre-1997". This seems like legalistic hair-splitting to me - but he's sticking to that line. (1997 was the year Columbia Pacific lost "Approved" status in California. It stayed open a few more years while appeals were underway).

I will be applying more sunshine to this situation. If anyone else can uncover bogus/sub-standard degrees among Athabasca faculty, please let me know, so that I can have a longer list to present to the Government Minister in charge (with copy to the local newspapers...).

 

Where do you find the credentials of their profs? I looked about the site a bit, and mainly just saw: "Dr. Block, PhD, MBA" rather than any detailed info about schools attended, publications, etc. (though I did see some examples of the above info, it just wasn't the rule).

Not saying Athabasca falls into this category, but this does seem to be a common practice among universities where the majority of professors have anywhere from second-rate to slightly shady to outright bogus creds.

In the Prez's defense, it is also quite true that one need not possess a doctorate or even any college creds at all to teach. You can read this right on the standards of some of the accreditors' sites. There are examples of this at the highest levels of academia: Einstein's "PhD" was almost "honorary" in nature, and at the very least pretty much a PhD by recognition of publications rather than through the traditional route.

 

Even though I have considered you a royal pain in the butt in the past, I agree with your stance here; good for you for making a stink.

 

Athabasca University - Some Progress

Just when I had written Athabasca U's Administrators off as unteachable and unreachable, it appears there is some progress !

I went back to the webpages for Ms. Lee Ann Keple Professor of Marketing. Previously, the webpages showed a bogus DBA from Warnborough "University". Lo and Behold - this reference has been erased ! I know it was there before, because Google's cache still contains the old version of the webpage with the "DBA listing" - which I've now printed for record safekeeping... - but no more.

Unfortunately, the correction is not complete because the revised webpage is still headed "Lee Ann Keple, DBA". Somebody obviously forgot to clean up that line...

I'm still going to take this up with the Provincial Government. However, Athabasca U does get some credit for at least removing the worst embarrassments from public view.

 

Re: Athabasca University - Some Progress

By the way, in future you can use the Internet Wayback Machine to find old versions of Web sites that go much farther back than Google cache:

http://www.archive.org/index.php

Very useful also when doing research for school and the document you were looking for has been taken offline.

 

Why not?
Professor is the title of the university lecturer (somewhere in the world is national) and just after you finish your teaching at the university, it is zero. If they are integrity to declare their degree, I am sure that they are proud of that. An unaccredited doctorate becomes a prof at an accredited university.
Forum Admins should you move this topic to the accredited vs unaccredited...

 

Athabasca is well known to be "bias" when it comes to employmet of faculty. I have applied there few times and always have been beaten by someone with lesser credentials. The same have happened to many people that I know.

It just shows that is always better to know someone than having an accredited doctorate.

 

Why would you play the role of HR or university police? What gives you the right to do that? You are listing schools that are legitimate, maybe not in your eyes but according to the state of California they are.

I am not shocked by the lack of response from the school, I am shocked that someone would falsely accuse schools of being bogus and attack someones career. Did you mention that the schools are state approved? Did you ask if the position they are in required an RA PhD? Did you ask if the candidate explained that the degree was state approved? Did you ask if they were receiving PhD level pay? Did you ask if anyone cared what you thought?

 

Re: Re: University Response to Profs with Bogus Degrees

Uh, sounds like he did them a favor, as it appears that they subsequently corrected some information on their site. The young lady professor who moonlights as a comedianne must have experienced the very unfunny consequence of being called on the carpet and having her official bio changed. Look, exposing stuff like this does Athabasca good. If they let something slip through the cracks and a bougus degree shows up in a prof's bio, they need to know.

 

Athabasca University Reverses Policy

I just got an official letter today from the President of Athabasca University thanking me for bringing this to his attention. I'll quote the key section:

Checking the profs' profiles reveals that yes indeed the bogus degrees have been removed - and several previous "Dr XXX" are suddenly naked without the DBAs and PhDs.

Athabaska University ought to be commended for this step. This leaves three universities in Canada who I've identified as having bogus degrees among their faculty, and a half-dozen community colleges. They are:

Guelph University
Wilfrid Laurier University
University of Manitoba

Fanshawe College
Peace River Regional College
Mohawk College
North Island College
Georgian College
RCC Instutute

If anyone knows of other Canadian institutions with bogus degrees among their faculty, please drop me a line.

 

Re: Not just state approved institutions here

They were lumped together.