http://www.rushmore.edu/faq2.htm Rushmore University's Response to Inaccurate & Accurate Postings About Rushmore University on the AED Newsgroup and on Websites by Michael A. Cox, Ph.D. President and Director of Graduate Studies This was posted to AED today. Interesting reading.
It is a rather candid message. I disagree, however, that the Oregon stance on unaccredited schools is a flash in the pan, and likely to be held illegal. I believe that since Oregon, states such as South Dakota (where Rushmore had its mailing address), Louisiana, Iowa, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have legislated to eliminate unaccredited schools and, in the latter two cases, make the use of degrees illegal. Bob Jones U would have been a good test case, testing the Oregon law, but the Oregon website now specifically says that Bob Jones degrees are OK in Oregon. One might wish that the proprietors of other unaccredited schools responded to criticisms in such a manner.
Taken to its logical conclusion, wouldn't an Oregon-like stance in all the states effectively put an end to new institutions in the U.S.? Who would want a degree that could not be used anywhere? In that case, marginal schools would become commodities and could auction their right to exist like FCC licenses. It could be argued that there are more than enough schools in the U.S., but someone would have to buy and expand an existing school if they want to open, say, Bear's College of Dance.
"...buy and expand an existing school if they want to open, say, Bear's College of Dance." Yeah, we mail you those footprint sheets which you tape to the floor, you mail us a video of yourself doing Hava Nagila, and we mail you a Master of Israeli Dance, or an MBA in Corporate Dance, or whatever the heck you want. But seriously, the Oregon approach, if widely adopted, could make a dent in the problem, especially if enforced and publicized. I hope and trust this sort of discussion will arise at the CHEA conference on diploma and accreditation mills, in Washington in three weeks. Some of the key state regulators and many federal ones will be there, as will I. A report here will follow.
Hmmm. The response is "candid" based on Dr. Cox's faulty recollection of the facts. One of the incorrect recollections he made was that the school had never claimed to have applied for regional accreditation. In fact, the message on the site originally said "We have applied for, and expect to receive, regional accreditation." *That* was what caused me to call the North Central Association, because I couldn't believe it was true... and it wasn't. Cox emailed me with the info that they'd "ordered the packet" which, to his mind, was somehow equated with having applied. He quickly revised the language to say something like "We are in the process of applying for regional accreditation" after seeing what I said on a.e.d. about his bogus statement. I then emailed him back immediately, pointing out that his initially false, and the followup misleading claim were violations of NCA's policy. Only then did he remove the information from his page. And he had one of the largest slew of completely bogus (i.e., nonexistent) accreditors I've ever seen. There can be no purpose for creating bogus accreditors other than to deceive students, regardless of any lame justification he may try to make. Now he's claiming (again) that he's applying for regional accreditation. If the guy honestly thinks that he has a snowball's chance in Hell of ever achieving RA with the North Central Association, then, in my opinion, he is clearly delusional... or an incredibly bad businessman. Neither of which is what any prospective MBA student wants. Especially since he can no longer legally operate his post office box campus in South Dakota, thanks to recent changes in the laws there. All in all, Cox's "response" to postings here and at a.e.d. are just your standard millspeak that misrepresents the value and importance of regional accreditation. The part I don't understand is whether he *knows* that he's misrepresenting the facts, or is literally so clueless that he honestly believes the millspeak baloney that he puts on his site.
