Does anyone know anything about Touro University Int.

Interesting news about TUI

The Chronicle has listed a job at Touro University. Here is the link (http://chronicle.com/jobs/id.php?id=312455&pg=s&cc=&other=)

This ad states: "Touro University - Nevada is a branch campus of Touro University - California and began operation this year in Henderson Nevada."

Notice that this part of the listing does not include the word INTERNATIONAL. In addition, the school is in Nevada not California which is the location of TUI.

 

Re: Interesting news about TUI

Please visit these links and you wil get an idea of Touro Branch campuses.

http://www.touro.edu/general/locationsworld.asp

http://www.touro.edu/general/locationsnyc.asp

http://www.touroberlin.de/

http://www.touro.ru/

 

Two comments:

-I like name Touro University much better than TUI.

-If I were a prospective student I would pass on TUI until accreditation is straightened out. If I was already a student I wouldn't stress out about it.

 

Dave,

Hi. I highly respect your opinion, but there is a some question as to whether there is anything to "straighten out" with respect to accreditation. MSA gave its blessing to Touro College and the plan for TUI to come under the auspices of WASC, where TUI is actually located.

Best wishes,

Dave

 

Hi

I completedly understand. The issue is TUI is offering a fully DL Ph.D. which is very rare. WASC is tough on DL schools. Chances are TUI will do whatever is needed to make the switch from MSA to WASC, but we don't know what those changes are and how they might affect the school. Again, as a prospective student I would pass on TUI until the issue is resolved. If I were already enrolled, I wouldn't worry.

 

Nevada school

The branch in Nevada is part of the medical school (DO not MD) and the medical school has always been known as Touro University. For you ex-navy guys I think it is onthe old Mare island Naval base. I would imagine that when everything shakes out, these schools will be merged in some fashion and Touro University International will experience a name change. Maybe to Touro University - International campus or something like that. I hope so, I never liked International part of the name. They had some legal limitations as a branch of Touro College I believe as there is a legal definition in New York as to whom can call themselves a University.

 

Bingo!!!!

 

Yes, and an asteroid may strike the Earth in the near future, according to your research method, making that 100% DL Ph.D. earned from Phobos University Intergalactic a hot commodity...

Eschewing obfuscation,

Dave

 

I'm a little hesitant to post on a thread that seems to have turned into an ego-battle, but here goes.

Touro is a fairly young school, that started out in New York City as a small Jewish-related college. (It offers an excellent Jewish Studies program, btw.)

As I understand it, Touro's generic problem with Middle States has been its rapid growth. That breaks down into two sub-problems:

First Touro has been creating branch-campuses very rapidly. Foremost among them is probably Touro University California, located in historic buildings on the former Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo Ca. (The navy base dates back to the Civil War.) This campus includes Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (TUCOM) and a new school of education that's just rolling out. Freshly minted TUCOM in turn is opening another school of osteopathic medicine in Las Vegas. In addition there's Touro University International, the DL business school in suburban Los Angeles, plus branch operations in Jerusalem and Moscow I believe.

Middle States finally said, 'whoa, wait a minute'. Now that most of the Touro operations are thousands of miles from NY, and now that some of them are larger than the parent school (TU California probably is), Touro should think about getting these things accredited where they are actually located.

That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong or that there's a scandal. It's just a natural accompaniment of Touro's explosive growth. Middle States has been inspecting these things and found them accreditable, but now wants WASC to take over the responsibilities for the California branches. WASC has already indicated that they conducted a joint site visit with Middle States and weren't horrified or anything. Frankly, the suggestions that WASC might refuse TU California and TU International kind of suggests that Middle States was incompetent in adding them to Touro NY's accreditation, and that's not likely.

So I would bet on both of the California Touro's getting WASC accreditation. The probability is extremely high in my estimation. I don't know if TUI and TUC will be combined or if they will remain separate, though.

The biggest potential change might be the 100% DL doctorates. To my knowledge, WASC has never accredited a totally DL doctoral program. While there's a possibility that they will use this opportunity to change their policy, it's more likely (in my opinion) that they will make TUI put in some short residencies like Saybrook etc. require.

The second sub-problem that I referred to above involved Touro University International enrolling students faster than Middle States liked. So the accreditor fired a shot across TUI's bow by putting it on probation. TUI froze admissions and apparently added faculty and resources, and my understanding is that the probation was subsequently lifted.

I agree that prospective students should be aware of these things. But people shouldn't get hysterical either.

Touro is growing very aggressively. It's probably growing faster than it should be, faster than is healthy. So that's bad. But if Touro manages to turn itself into a big-time doctoral-level university in record time, then that might actually help its graduates, by raising the school's profile. Or alternatively, it may just crash and burn. But before that happens, it will probably just slow down (the accreditors may force them to, judging from Middle States' recent actions) and digest and consolidate what they have already built.

So Touro is kind of a gamble, but it doesn't really look like terrible odds to me. Failure is possible but unlikely. Remaining an obscure low-prestige school is probably the most likely result, but certainly not the end of the world. And the opportunity to earn a low cost degree from what might grow into a large private university system would be the pay-off.

Would I recommend it? Sure, for students who aren't looking for prestige, reputation or high-powered research scholarship, but who want low cost, student-friendly policies and who don't care very much about possible name changes or organizational shakeups.