DETC Results Scorecard, update 1

YES
William Howard Taft University
Universidad FLET

NO

POSTPONED
YorktownUniversity

YET TO BE HEARD FROM
Central State University
IMPAC University
Lansbridge University
Rescue College
Southwest University
St. John's University

 

Good for WHT.

"Since our first graduate sat for the California Bar Examination in July, 1987, 184 graduates have sat for the examination, 62 passed on the first attempt, 23 passed on the second attempt, 16 passed on the third attempt, and 27 passed on a subsequent attempt. This results in a first-time pass rate of 33.7% and a cumulative pass rate of 69.6%.

Taking into consideration only graduates who have completed all four years of law study at Taft (i.e., excluding transfer students from other law schools), 39.1% passed the Bar Examination on the first attempt, and 61.4% passed on either the first or second attempt.

•William Howard Taft University was the first distance learning law school to have a graduate admitted to and successfully complete a Master of Laws (LL.M.) Program at a law school approved by the American Bar Association.

•Taft University has had graduates pass in 30 of the last 31 California Bar Examinations. (No other correspondence school had graduates pass in more than 19 examinations during this period.)

•During the last 15 years, Taft University has had more than twice as many graduates pass the California Bar Examination on the first attempt than any other distance education law school.

•Taft University was the first distance law school to offer its law students access to a computer legal research library, which can be accessed through a personal computer in the student’s home or office.

• Taft University was the first distance learning law school to not offer a “non-bar” or “Executive Juris Doctor” program. While this results in lower revenues to the University, we believe a Juris Doctor degree should give an individual the opportunity to sit for a bar examination and become an attorney. If you enroll in a “non-bar” or “Executive Juris Doctor” program, none of your credits awarded in these programs will ever be accepted by the Committee of Bar Examiners."

http://www.taftu.edu/lw11.htm

My Spanish is lacking but, FLET appears to be equally worthy of accreditation.

http://www.flet.edu/info_gen/ante.html

http://www.flet.edu/info_gen/acred.html

 

Just two. Is that it?

Any updates?

For all the crap DETC takes they must be quite demanding.

Is there really any difference in standards between R/A and DETC or is it that R/A was first and they have no need to recognize anyone else?

I don't understand why a school would even apply unless they believed positively that they would succeed. It ain't cheap.

Is DETC failing to communicate sufficiently with candidates?

 

I'm a proponent of the "upper end" DETC schools. I just wish they would put the others in a different category or call it something else. I do think you need to be careful to ensure that DETC will meet your future needs, not always an easy thing to predict.

An example would be that the American Military University is accredited by the same folks and in the same manner as the Center for Lactation Education, Hypnosis Motivation Institute, and the Gemological Institute of America. Nothing wrong with those last three, but, in my opinion, they are not in the same league with AMU, Aspen U., or the Catholic Distance University (to name a few).

The three schools (AMU, Aspen, CDU) have comparable quality and content with regionally accredited schools. The others do not.



Tom Nixon

 

Opinion... then, again

"An example would be that the American Military University is accredited by the same folks and in the same manner as the Center for Lactation Education, Hypnosis Motivation Institute, and the Gemological Institute of America. Nothing wrong with those last three, but, in my opinion, they are not in the same league with AMU, Aspen U., or the Catholic Distance University (to name a few). .... The three schools (AMU, Aspen, CDU) have comparable quality and content with regionally accredited schools. The others do not."

Then again, there are also several regionally accredited schools whose offerings are inferior in quality and content when compared to the offerings of any DETC school. For example, although the course offerings are different, the Center for Lactation Education, the Hypnosis Motivation Institute, and the Gemological Institute of America, are in my opinion, superior in every way when compared to Cheyney University.

How did Cheyney even earn RA? And more importantly, how are they allowed to maintain it? I think that PA or Prison Accreditation would be more suitable. All that the school needs is some electrified bars. Seriously, though, if the MSA refuses to revoke this school’s accreditation, we should continue to view their accreditation standards as suspect.

 

That's quite an indictment of Cheyney, Jeff.

All I know about it is that it is the first "historically black" college in America, and that it has been around since 1837, and has about 2,000 students (and regional accreditation)(and nothing to do with our umVice President).

Could you explain why you feel the way you do about it? -- Perhaps in the "Off Topic" forum, since I don't believe this has relevance to distance learning.

Thanks.

 

This is not the first time RoyalBlueChief has thrown out a non sequitur about Cheyney; he also did so in the only other discussion he has participated in, a thread about the University of Phoenix (where he suggested fencing Cheyney in and turning it into a prison):
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8603

I'm marginally familiar with the school, and nothing I've read about it suggests to me that it has any unusual academic problems.


Cheers,

 

Re: Opinion... then, again

Similar remarks were made about Cheyney last year. So I'm going to repost what I wrote then:

Cheyney University. The oldest black university in the United States, founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth.

Cheyney has had its ups and downs, including financial and accreditation problems. It labors under the burden of trying to educate a student body drawn largely from poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia, who are often poorly prepared for university work and who have a low retention rate. US News classifies it as a fourth tier Northern regional masters-level institution, with an academic reputation score of 2.0. Only 11 of 562 masters level schools have lower academic rep scores. That puts it in the bottom 2%.

Nevertheless, a Google search indicates that there are positives for Cheyney.

Their library, as one would expect in America's first black college, has significant manuscript collections relating to African-American history.

The school has turned out a number of prominent alumni, including '60 Minutes' editor and CBS News correspondent Ed Bradley.

A new masters program was recently approved for Cheyney to train middle school science teachers, and Cheyney was the recipient of a recent National Science Foundation science teacher project grant.

Imogene Chang, a Cheyney faculty member, serves on the National Academy of Science's Committee on Prudent Practices for Handling, Storage and Disposal of Chemicals in Laboratories.

NASA scientist Willie Mackey has a NASA scientist in residence grant for him to spend a year at Cheyney teaching in the school's new nanotechnology certification program.

Kwo-Sun Chu, a Cheyney professor, and Bernard Richards of Kent State have collaborated in presenting several papers at recent meetings of the American Physical Society.

I tired of looking at Google hits at that point, but there's lots more where that came from.

So I'm going to argue that even at the low end of the RA spectrum, there's some there there, as Gertrude Stein might say. Despite the fact that it isn't even a doctoral level school, Cheyney shows more intellectual life than most non-accredited schools churning out Ph.D.s.

So what about DETC? I have no problem accepting that they best DETC schools are probably better than Cheyney. American Military University, for example. But how much better? And what about the bottom 2% of DETC schools? That's where the relevant comparison needs to be made.

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5716&perpage=10&pagenumber=2

 

Congratulations indeed to David Boyd and William Taft University!

 

Per DETC FAQ:

"...Q. Is DETC accreditation equal to “regional” accreditation?
A. In every measurable way, yes! DETC accreditation is just as valid as any regional accreditation, and the Secretary of Education has officially recognized DETC since 1959 and by the Council for Higher Education and its predecessors since 1975. We meet the precisely same standards as do the regionals, and we would hasten to add we have vastly more experience and tougher, more stringent standards for distance learning than any other agency in the U.S. ..."

 

A question

Where is the St. John's located that is being evaluated by the DETC? Thanks. Hille

 

# the Secretary of Education has officially recognized DETC
# since 1959 and by the Council for Higher Education and its
# predecessors since 1975.
-- http://www.detc.org/content/frequentlyQust.html

Hasn't DETC got anyone to proofread its FAQ? The above should be either:

"the Secretary of Education has officially recognized DETC since 1959, as have the Council for Higher Education and its predecessors since 1975."

or:

"DETC has been officially recognized by the Secretary of Education since 1959, and by the Council for Higher Education and its predecessors since 1975."

Do the FAQs of any of the Regional Accreditors show similar signs of not having been proofread?

 

Two observations, sine ira et studio, concerning Cheyney:

the name Cheyney University of Pennsylvania seems likely to promote confusion with the University of Pennsylvania, unless there is some other Cheyney institution of which I am unaware. (If a mill had done this, we'd all be on 'em like a flash.)

the Judiciary, as it is called--the code of conduct for students--is quite draconian. (If a Christian school had promulgated this, we'd, well, you know...)

 

Hille - St. Johns U - I believe is in Louisiana.

 

Take State Route 42 out of Springfield, Louisiana. Just past the CrawGator Lounge, turn north on a one-lane road. Rusty schoolbuses on the right, "Bad Dog" sign on the left, and you're there.

(When I went, the sign on the highway said "St. John's University of Practical Theology." They seem to have abandoned the last three words.)

 

Pennsylvania has several universities named after the cities (or towns) that they are located in:

Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
California University of Pennsylvania
Clarion University of Pennsylvania
East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
Haverford College in Pennsylvania
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania
Mansfield University of Pennsylvania
Millersville University of Pennsylvania
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
West Chester University of Pennsylvania
York College of Pennsylvania


And two of them:
California University of Pennsylvania
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
are really set up to confuse people and do sound somewhat "millish" except to the people that really know them (I sent several days on IUP's campus about 20 years ago).

 

Any updates on the list of DETC candidates?

Thank you.

 

Updates?

I've heard nothing, nor is there anything new on the DETC site.

Since DETC only announces positive outcomes, we may be approaching the time when we can deduce that the rest of the schools didn't make it -- or were postponed.

 

Well, snap my gumband! Whole lotta coattail ridin' goin' on! I remember when most of these were plain ole state colleges; names sounded a lot less weird and a lot less millish then, too.

Haverford, of course, is in but not of.

Here are some more possibilities:

Royal University of Pennsylvania (in King of Prussia)
Corsican Brothers University of Pennsylvania (in Paoli)
Intercourse University of Pennsylvania
Bird-in-Hand University of Pennsylvania (may merge with IUP)
DuBois University of Pennsylvania (and its DL division, the WEB DuBois University of Pennsylvania)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology of Pennsylvania

 

When I was in sixth grade in West Chester, PA, West Chester University of Pennsylvania was just West Chester State College having been West Chester State Teachers College a couple of years earlier, of course that was a few decades ago.