Westmar, Marycrest, and the loss of accreditation

Here's an intriguing article in today's Des Moines newspaper, on Westmar U lost its accreditation and Marycrest U want on probation, both in the aftermath of their sale to a Japanese investor, who did a bunch of rather outrageous things, such as overruling the faculty, and requiring awarding of degrees to Japanese students who spoke little English and had done little work.
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4780927/16711939.html

 

A charming way to run a school.

This reminded me of an AED posting about "Salem International University." I am assuming that "Teikyo Group" and Teikyo University Group" are the same. Due to its various name changes the university has several websites. From one of them (http://www.salemiu.edu/)comes this sequence of events in reverse order; one has to wonder if the last event was due to their loss of appetite for US colleges:

"In July 2001, Salem International University entered into a partnership with Informatics Holdings Ltd., a registered private school with the Ministry of Education of Singapore. Through this partnership Salem International University will remain a private, not-for-profit institution of higher learning, and will work with Informatics Holdings Ltd., a for-profit business, to provide both on-campus and on-line education to students from around the world. This is a unique relationship and one of the first for an American institution of higher learning. The mission and goals of Salem International remain unchanged.

"In 2000 Salem-Teikyo University changed its name to Salem International University. Between 1989 and 2001 Salem College had an educational partnership with Teikyo University in Japan, at that time the name was changed from Salem College to Salem-Teikyo University.

"Founded as Salem College in 1888, Salem International University is a private, independent, non-profit American higher education institution. It was an educational partner with Teikyo University and was an affiliate of the Teikyo Group, a network of international educational institutions dedicated to global education and the cultivation of world citizens."

 

I wonder if I could take that class where they show the movie Benji and pick up my last 3 liberal arts credits...or to I have to be Japanese to enroll in that one?

Dan

 

I also notice that the former Westmar campus is for sale or lease. Someone should forward this URL to Maxine Asher, since it seems that her American World University is in need of a campus. Seems like a win-win situation to me.
http://www.lemarsiowa.com/campus/


Bruce

 

Bruce: "...it seems that her American World University is in need of a campus..."

Whatever for? The secretarial services in Iowa and Mississippi seem to be doing the job for her (although perhaps holding the graduation ceremony in that cubicle was less than satisfactory).

 

I live in Davenport, IA, the home of Marycrest International University.

I believe it started out as a woman's college with ties to Saint Ambrose University (also in Davenport). At one time it was considered a respectable school.

Since it was acquired by a Japanese businessman, it took a quick turn into becoming the joke univerisity of the area.

I don't think they have more than two or three hundred full-time students. Most of them, I would guess, are nursing students.

Really, it's a sad story. I'd like to see some like Upper Iowa University acquire the campus.

All the best,


Phil

 

Both Westmar and Marycrest seem to have been struggling before Teikyo acquired them. They were desperate, bleeding red ink and badly needed the cash infusions that Teikyo offered them in exchange for control. It seems that the churches that previously owned them, Catholic and Methodist, were in no mood to continue subsidizing them.

As I read things, there is a real question whether the schools would have survived without Teikyo. So that suggests that it might be more accurate to say that Teikyo is failing in its mission to save the schools, rather than that it is responsible for killing them.

Apparently the main academic complaint is that considerable numbers of mono-lingual Japanese-speaking students were imported and put into classes conducted in English where they were unable to perform. Then the Teikyo group applied pressure to pass them anyway. That resulted in the schools' accreditation being put on probation.

Well, the obvious question is why Teikyo didn't import Japanese-speaking instructors and conduct parallel course sections in Japanese to serve the Japanese-speaking students. It would have raised costs somewhat, I guess. But it would have also made the schools much more attractive to prospective Japanese students hence raising fee-paying enrollments. These kind of dual-medium schools that offer parallel course sections conducted in more than one language exist in Canada, for example.

So I'm wondering why that wasn't done. Did Teikyo just not want to spend the money to fly in Japanese professors? Or did the American faculty rebel at the prospect of many of them being replaced by Japanese?

 

Reminds me of Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, which started out much like other private colleges in Iowa. However, by the late 60s it had acquired a reputation as the college of last resort for lazy/dumb rich kids. I don't know if it actually lost accreditation or was just placed on probation -- it closed down in 1973.

The campus was purchased for Maharishi International University, now Maharishi University of management.

Schools can go downhill very fast after administrators start to make poor decisions -- it's a lot harder to turn them around.

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Kristin Evenson Hirst
DistanceLearn.About.com