St. Clements Univ. -- need info, please!

Hey, fellas, all George said was that if St Clements goes to an African country and gets proper accreditation through the Ministry of Education, then good on them and so be it.

Wew, I hate to have some of you guys on my parole board (if I ever needed one!).

 

Yes, St Clements is a 'university company' but isn't all universities? St Clements provides education at a level that most of us would be horrified by, but it is still in the business of education.

And as George rightfully says, quite objectively, and Uncle concedes, that if they go to an African country and get proper accreditation then so be it

 

Whilst it is debatable that history is, and should, be taken into account when making an accreditation decision, I don't think it would help the situation. When Greenwich appeared on our shores, there was incisive research on its past, which no doubt threw up a few red flags. I must say, when I did my case study on Greenwich, I was floored by some of the things it did in the past. To its credit though, it never claimed accreditation from a non-wonderful accrediting agency.

Cheers,

George

 

Thanks for the support mate. Luckily I am big enough (and ugly enough) to take the heat. It is an important issue though, and deserves to be debated. One wonders if history is taken into account these matters, and if it is ethical to do so.

Cheers,

George

 

Becoming accredited

I must say that I disagree with this. If they truly meet the standards, the accreditors (including DETC) will require them to uphold the standards or they will revoke the accreditation. I don't agree with the criticism of DETC either. I took a DETC diploma program, and it was very challenging and I learned a lot. Any individual certainly has the right to not enroll in an institution with a questionable history even if it becomes accredited later, but I can't see why accreditors should add to their long list of dos and donts that institutions can not have a substandard history.

 

If they operated as a mill for years then cleaned up their act, should this be held against them? (Note: I don't know St Clements so this is simply a hypothetical question.)

My answer is a loud YES! This is not a person deserving of forgiveness. This would be a diploma mill that if accredited would suddenly greatly enhance many diploma mill degrees to a status near bona fide.

Along the same note, If they operated as a significantly substandard school for years then cleaned up their act, should this be held against them?

The answer to this too is yes (although not a loud yes). Should they be denied accreditation because of it? This would be a case by case decision, IMHO.

Where does SCU fit in this rainbow? I don't know. Perhaps George would be willing to give us an opinion?

 

That presupposes both that the "accreditation" process actually is "rigorous" and that those whose doubt is being questioned should already know that.

The problem is that most education consumers (and most higher education professionals as well, I'd wager), don't have a clue what these weird off-shore "accreditations" mean, if anything.

If that operation was accompanied by intentionally misleading accreditation claims and questionable associations, then questions might be raised in the accreditors' minds about academic and business ethics.

But the more relevant issue in these kind of cases isn't what's happening in the accreditors' minds, but what's happening in ours. Not only are we faced with the applicant institution's questionable history, there's also the additional issue of the new "accredition". If a school has a history of making questionable claims and trying to mislead, what assurance do we have that their latest gambit is finally something different and not just more of the same?

In situations where we have owners living in one country, schools being registered as off-shore businesses on a different continent, and then claiming university "accreditation" from hitherto unknown parties of unknown reliability on yet a third continent, it really looks like 'jurisdiction shopping'. And when and if the school starts trumpeting "GAAP" staus, I think that any intelligent person's first response should be very strong (if defeasible) skepticism.

So no, I don't think that we owe them any "benefit of the doubt".

 

Because part of the accreditation process is a solicitation of public comments on the applicants. That means that they have to list them.

 

Sue:
"If they truly meet the standards, the accreditors (including DETC) will require them to uphold the standards or they will revoke the accreditation. I don't agree with the criticism of DETC either. I took a DETC diploma program, and it was very challenging and I learned a lot."

I also have DETC diplomas and I like the DETC. That's the reason I don't understand why they've accredited some of the school's that they have. Why are CCU's accredited degree requirements a lot more work in the words of graduates than when unaccredited. Evidence I think that unaccredited DL schools don't take students or educational process seriously. They try to get away with as little effort as possible.

Thanks
Dan

 

Bill :

"This would be a diploma mill that if accredited would suddenly greatly enhance many diploma mill degrees to a status near bona fide."

And why would any legitimate educator want to be associated with what was previously a mill?

 

BillDayson:
"The problem is that most education consumers (and most higher education professionals as well, I'd wager), don't have a clue what these weird off-shore "accreditations" mean, if anything."

I think you are right on this. To me all this offshore ,African etc. "accredidation" pursuit is just a shell game designed to fool as many as possible in an effort to appear legitimate.

"claiming university "accreditation" from hitherto unknown parties of unknown reliability on yet a third continent, it really looks like 'jurisdiction shopping''

Good points again Bill. And it seems these countries don't really know what is going on when dealing with these supposed "universities".

Dan

 

sine culpa non est clementia

Bill Dayson's "very strong if defeasible scepticism" puts my POV exactly.

I wasn't really conceding anything, as far as I know.

It's quite possible for an African country to "know what it's doing"; personally, I should be horrified to deny that. What's not possible is for an African country (or Caribbean country, or any other country) with no serious accreditation protocol; with no normally functioning government (e.g. recent Liberia); with no serious review of an applicant institution's past; or with no settled quality control measures of some other transparent and efficient kind to grant accreditation worthy of the name.

Adamsmith misses the point of SCU's language. In some abstract sense any university is a university company. But who cares? SCU has a companies license from Turks and Caicos. SCU has chosen its language carefully--an in accord with that licence--to describe itself as a "university company". Of course, a quick further scan shows that they promptly slide away to just plain "university". Golly gee, Batman, I wonder why? Are they relying on a fudge factor such as that which adamsmith has (we'll assume inadvertently) introduced? Well, it wouldn't be the first trompe l'oeil by a spoilt fritter!

I appreciate the insistence on rigour by FWD, Dayson, and Huffman. There is far too much crap about a fiction of institutional "repentance"--a fiction which makes neither ethical, theological, nor educational sense. Can an outfit clean up its act? Sure. But what an overwhelming burden of proof rests upon them over a period of time to maintain the cleaned-up act! Then and only then can reposeful credibility be given them. There are no instant fixes--not in Turks and Caicos, not in some putative African nation, not in Newburgh Indiana, nowhere.

I do agree with suelaine that holding an entire history against an institution may be too much. That's why a good-behaviour AND good-credential period of some time (not a week or a month, but years) is needed to say that an institution is credible.

 

Well said Uncle. I wonder though if any country .African nations included,really has a beat on the unaccredited. They play the deception game all too well it apears. They've fooled California pretty well through the years. That's why I think it is hopeless to try and figure them out.


Columbia Commonwealth supposedly is (or was) pursuing RA. I would be horrified if they did achieve it. Based on CPU,IUAS antics WAUC is all they deserve. This would seem to be an example of
the ignorance of past misdeeds of DL school by an organization that this time however should have a handle on the problem.

Dan

 

how many?

If a university becomes accredited..........then it will have to become accredited by some posters here as well.??

Amazing.

 

George:

But George is it ethical not to take into account previous history? How can you not? It is what they were all about. Bills' Dayson and Huffman are much better versed and more eloquent than I on these matters but this to me would be an incredible oversight if ignored. Wouldn't any prospective student want to know such mill information?