Linkage between Knightsbridge University & Claremont International University(Part 2)

Bill Dayson writes:

> The evidence suggests that Mr. Kersey is a talented
> musician. Award winning in fact.

It does indeed. In 1996, he won the Sir Arthur Bliss Trust Prize, for a piano sonata (http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Departments/Music/Bliss/ab_priz.htm). And his M.Mus. from the Royal College of Music (Google's cache of http://www.mpw.co.uk/lon/staff.html; he seems to have recently left the teaching staff of the Mander Portman Woodward School in London), graduating "as the top pianist in his year"
(http://www.musicweb.uk.net/IRR/reviewers.html) is certainly something to be proud of. One of my favourite musicians, Rick Wakeman (keyboardist for Yes; extensive solo career; voted the world's top keyboardist for many years), dropped out of the Royal College of Music.

> That's different than using a dissertation to earn a degree
> from university A, then resubmitting the same work to
> university B for a second degree.

What is is not always what ought to be. Do you agree that there are ought to be a way for people who submitted good dissertations to diploma mills, to redeem their work?

As for Gus's question, my reasoning is that, even if Kersey's doctoral work were worthless, vanity would prevent him from throwing it away. And I'm by no means convinced that it's worthless: he seems a bright enough chap.

Rich, thanks for the clarification.

 

And now the Claremont Webmaster has inserted a little script at the beginning of http://www.claremontedu.org/faculty-list.htm, re-directing to the Claremont home page so the faculty info doesn't display. They seem awfully sensitive about information they posted publicly.

 

This happens all the the time. I did doctoral work at two differnt RA universities. The second one accepted coursework from the first, so I just had to complete the amount of units required for residency and did not have to re-take the qualitative research, intermediate stastics and other courses that I had already completed.

Now if someone were to complete all doctoral requirements, comprehensive examinations and be in the midst of dissertation and then transfer to another university just to finish the dissertation, that would be a different story entirely. I have never heard of anyone doing that legitimately (although I did know someone with very shaky credentials who claimed to have done precisely that at a CA-approved university).

Tony Pina
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino

 

Tony: Now if someone were to complete all doctoral requirements, comprehensive examinations and be in the midst of dissertation and then transfer to another university just to finish the dissertation, that would be a different story entirely. I have never heard of anyone doing that legitimately (although I did know someone with very shaky credentials who claimed to have done precisely that at a CA-approved university).


John: We had one unusual case during my time with Greenwich University. A woman was doing her PhD at NYU in New York. Her dissertation proposal involved interviewing 200 patients of her cardiologist husband; something involving correlating interview data with heart health. She had completed all her courses, her prelims, and half the interviews when her husband suddenly died. She had no more access to his patients or their records. Four of her five committee members felt that 100 interviews were sufficient, and were happy to have her continue on that basis. The fifth (a dean) said absolutely not. He was immovable.

After she explored all possible accredited options, all four of her supportive NYU committee members agreed to join the Greenwich faculty solely for the purpose of seeing her through, and this was successfully done.

 

I had a colleague who did something like this. She was at Berkeley, had completed the required coursework, and was in midst of research when her advisor died. For some reason, she decided to move to Stanford to complete her PhD (rather than finding another advisor at Berkeley). But it probably added about 2 years to her graduation date.

Bill mentioned professors moving and bringing students with them. This is quite common -- but if a student is well along in his/her program (has officially passed the qualifying exam, etc) then typically he/she will graduate from the original school not the new one (even though research is completed at new school). This happened to a friend of mine -- who completed her Stanford PhD at USC when her advisor (Dick Thompson) moved there.

 

John,

I think that it's great that the NYU student had such understanding committee members and an institution that would offer that level of flexibility--RA institutions tend not to be quite so accommodating. Did she have any residency requirement to complete at Greenwich in addition to finishing her dissertation work?

Ox,

I know of several instances where well-known faculty in my field had moved to a diiferent university and brought students with them. In every one of those cases, it was just like you said (it added another couple of years to their graduation date).

Tony

 

Irrespective of the value of a Greenwich Ph.D., the dean at NYU was a jerk who didn't understand the power of so much qualitative data, especially when used to support quantitative data. Conducting 100 interviews was a huge undertaking, resulting--I'm sure--in more data than could possibly be used. There is little chance, IMHO, that the additional 100 interviews would have revealed such new data as to change the study's outcomes. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Just a stick-in-the-mud dead-set on ruining someone's career. What a fool.

 

Agreed. If this was an experimental or survey research design using primarily quantitative data, then 100 subjects would likely be too few. But for a qualitative study with extensive interviewing and research of medical backgrounds, 100 is more than sufficient. Many very good qualitative dissertations from the top research universities use far fewer than 100 subjects.

Tony Piña
Faculty, California State U. San Bernardino

 

Tony: Did she have any residency requirement to complete at Greenwich in addition to finishing her dissertation work?

John: Since the student and her four committee members were all in New York, it would have been a bit silly (if much fun) for them all to come to Hilo, Hawaii to have their meetings. They did meet regularly, but only in NY.

 

John,

You are right, of course, but that is not really what I meant. What I meant by "residency" was the requirement to do a certain amount of work (besides finishing the dissertation) as a Greenwich student in order to receive a Greenwich degree. That kind of residency is usually accomplished via coursework or other sorts of projects.

Granting degrees based on coursework done elsewhere with no residency is certainly not unknown here (case in point: the "Big Three"). Was Greenwich's model the no coursework/research PhD model common in non-U.S. universities or were some students also required to take courses at that time?

I know that you haven't been involved in Greenwich in many years, but I have a professional interest in "out-of-the box" thinking. And, besides, if it was not for your wonderful guides, I would never have gotten interested in this kind of stuff.

Tony Pina
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino (a nice, but very "in-the-box" institution)

 

The Greenwich model then was described as one of filling in the gaps, and what was to be done was entirely determined jointly by the student and two (usually) adjunct faculty. That's why it was so important to us to have faculty who really knew what a given degree traditionally included, and were comfortable with this model.

In some ways similar to the Union learning contract model: we'll figure out what you need to do, and then you do it. Union for years had a one year minimum, then two, now usually longer. Greenwich had no minimum, to allow for the possibility that someone would come in having done everything we would have required. There was a wide range of time required. I don't have statistics now, but I think two years was pretty common. Richard Goodman spent five full-time years, including his work at a research center in Cambridge. And the man from Nebrasksa didn't have to do anything new.

That happened only once on 'my watch.' Entirely as a hobby, the man from Nebraska had become a world authority on one of the Roman legions. He had taken every relevant history course at the University of Nebraska. He had published extensively. And he marched in (figuratively) with something like an 800-page treatise on his topic. Two history professors he had interacted with said that this was better than most dissertations they had supervised. Two outside readers we chose agreed. He did it all as his hobby.

So what more could one require of such a person?

Such people may not be all that rare, but it is rare even to want to parlay the work into a degree. The man who owns Ten Speed Press dropped out of Cal to start the company 40 years ago . . . never went back . . . and has become, over the years, a major authority on several aspects of Chinese antiques and art, especially feather paintings. If he ever did want a degree . . . well, come to think of it, Greenwich wouldn't have worked, since he has written very little. The Metropolitan Museum comes to him to discuss recent or planned acquisitions, but, while you can theoretically earn a Bachelor's entirely on oral exams, it would be hard to defend for a doctorate, I think.