William Loveland College

Nice catch, geoffs. Here's a more direct link that will take you directly to the court's opinion (in PDF format):

https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1:2017cv02037/189925/31/0.pdf?ts=1538213659

As anticipated, the suit was dismissed in toto. Just like David Lady has apparently flown the coop in toto.

But it was nice having the chance to re-read this thread - William Loveland College is still good for a laugh or two. Or three.

 

In reviewing this fun thread, I realized that I never responded to this question. So . . .

The answer is no - I have never earned an online degree. When I earned my last degree (the Union Ph.D. in 1991), online degrees did not yet exist. There were external degrees, correspondence degrees, university-without-walls degrees, and low-residency degrees, but online degrees would not come around for a few years. All of my degrees were low residency. (That includes my B.A. from what is now TESU, since I went to TESC for meetings with advisors, exams, etc.)

I have no problem with online undergrad degrees; the programs to which I object are totally external graduate programs in the helping professions, a position I have held for over 30 years. I have no objection to online undergrad programs at brick-and-mortar schools, but as a general rule, I consider the phrase online university to be an oxymoron. (I'm willing to cut some slack to WGU based on its history and governance.)

As for why I "hang around these parts," all of my degrees were earned non-traditionally, just not online. I am the author of two books on nontraditional education (among my five books in total), and have been involved with various forums in this field for just as long. I am much less involved with "these parts" these days, as well as less involved with higher education. That's because I've pretty much said everything I have to say, paid my dues when it comes to helping people, and decided that there are a lot more idiots around today than there were 30 years ago. So now I hang in there for the sake of humor. And with the realization that much of my knowledge is out of date - the article I wrote on portfolio credit from TESC was the lead article here on DI for well over a decade. But even I realized that as time went on, it became more and more out of date. Which is fine - I have no interest in updating it. But I can, and do, still laugh at the idiots.

 

Don't think it's worth a laugh: sad really. WLC started offering a DEAC MBA for $3500 US, wonder if that caused/impacted the loss of accrediation?

 

I cordially disagree. WLC was never accredited in its original form, ILM was the school that was accredited by DEAC. I don’t know the circumstances in which David Lady came to control ILM, but when he started the WLC MBA program he was trading off ILM’s accreditation. DEAC caught him in the act and took appropriate action to put the kibosh on his bullshit.

What is “sad really” is that so many otherwise reliable DI regulars bought into Dave’s sham – see the first few pages of this thread alone. In fact, as Dave notes, one of the people who endorsed the school and had some degree of involvement with it had served as a DI moderator at one time (and is still listed as one).

In fact, WLC has been a scam since day one, and the fact that they “started offering a DEAC MBA or $3500 US” was simply part of the scam. It could have been $2,995 – it would still be a scam, and you still get what you pay for. But from day one, Dave so smoothly conned the folks around here that he made MIGS look like amateurs. And when he was caught at it he simply whined his ass off with a losing lawsuit, then disappeared. I haven’t checked whether his whiney performances are still on YouTube, but rest assured I saved them a long time ago, and if I’m ever bored enough to watch them again I’ll make sure I have plenty of popcorn standing by. (And no, I will not send anyone the files of his performances. I gloat here, but I do have a life.)

In short, WLC was a degree mill from day one. A scam. A one-man show. With enough hokum that it would rival P.T. Barnum. And whether $3,500 or $10.95, the price of a bullshit degree in and of itself does not change the fact that it still stinks. So how can I not laugh?

So before I go, I offer my warm congratulations to DEAC – it’s nice to see them do something right for a change, and they aced their handling of this sordid affair.

 

It seems clear that no one here really looked at WLC very closely, perhaps out of blind trust or, perhaps just not having the time, experience/knowledge to know what to look for, etc. I don't mind saying that I never thought twice about it until the whole DEAC lawsuit thing happened. I also don't mind saying that this is an illustration of one basic function of a real accreditation agency and one of the reasons that I have a dim view of the schools that are not accredited such as the exempt religious schools. I have made no effort to track David Lady beyond the fact that he hasn't visited us since 05-24-17. Anyone?

 

Man, this thing was a wild ride.

What I will say is that I cannot hold the same view that Dr. Lady fooled the people of this forum. At least, people were no more fooled than they were with the University of Atlanta. They were offering exactly what they advertised; an MBA from a DEAC accredited school at a fairly cheap price. The accreditation was the stamp of approval. That everything was not on the up and up makes this, indeed, a win for DEAC in doing the right thing. In general, I think that it's always a good idea to watch a school through at least one renewal before signing onto it. That assumption of mine was based on the idea that it can, in theory, weed out shams that simply bought accreditation by acquiring an already accredited entity. Seems to be hit or miss, over all.

But I can't say that I blame anyone here for not getting excited about a low cost accredited program. Especially since we wouldn't know this much about it had Dr. Lady not come onto this forum to rally support and had we not been able to review the court filings. It's just one of those things.

Though I think that this, along with NationsU, is another example of why it's a bit odd to get emotionally invested in some of these schools. The people who were championing WLC had no real reason to do so other than liking the idea and hoping it would bring more credibility to DEAC. I think folks were also hopeful that WLC would get RA and be a low cost option in that space. Just like the people who were both for and against Nations had no skin in the game other than admiring, or being highly suspicious of, the work going on behind that UPS store address.

Without re-opening the Nations can of worms, though, I maintain, as I always have, that there is space for theological degrees in this lower tier of education. Always has been. It's how even unaccredited schools have survived there, some of them with vague recognition by their equally religious but actually accredited peers. But did we really need an MBA that was noteworthy for just being cheap?

 

My impression is that DEAC-accredited ILM transformed into DEAC-accredited WLC through a whole series of Substantive Change applications. It changed its name. It changed its academic focus. It changed its organizational structure. It changed its physical location. It changed its ownership. It changed its administrators. It changed the programs that it offered. Each small change had been approved incrementally by DEAC.

At some point DEAC came to the realization that WLC was an entirely new institution and that the Substantive Change process had been abused. (Even though they had approved each step as it happened.) So they announced that they wouldn't be re-upping WLC's accreditation and instead wanted it to submit an application as a new school.

WLC refused, David got extraordinarily hot, and they fired off their rather over-the-top lawsuit which seems to have just crashed and burned.

My own view is that the whole thing was managed very badly on both ends and doesn't make anyone look good.

Perhaps the bottom line is that if David (Lady) wants to take on Goliath, he needs to line up an army of powerful friends first.

Compare WLC with City College of San Francisco. That school failed repeatedly to meet WASC's accreditation standards. Eventually after many warnings, WASC pulled its accreditation. Then not only did the college sue, the teachers unions also sued, the California state government sued, and Nancy Pelosi worked her corrupt magic in DC and the Obama Education Department threatened to derecognize WASC. So WASC cravenly backed down and CCSF remains "fully accredited" despite not meeting accreditation standards.

Amazing what having powerful friends will get you.

 

I'm guessing that all accreditors have some sort of disclaimer statement in their paperwork that states that they reserve the right to suspend or at least re-assess an institutions status at any time and for no particular reason. They may never/rarely exercise this right but it seems that in this case they did. It's possible that this was all an elaborate scam or it might be that he just got in over his head and tried to fake his way through the process.

 

What I know of Dr. Lady from DI, is that one of his objectives is to provide an accredited education at an affordable cost. I think most people on DI will share that POV. To me , the name changed and mission changed are not about education and should have been handle with lawyers or accreditation specialists. The name calling by others, and the over the top response by Dr. Lady is getting in the weeds and have little value.

 

Ouch! You got me, Steve. If that includes yours truly, then thanks for the "otherwise reliable" attribution.

Yep - I drank the Kool-Aid. It was a hot day and the Reverend said it was free. This is not a defense (there is none) but I remember in the early days of this thing - reading a DEAC page and finding that the ILM programs were accredited and no mention of the Loveland MBA. I questioned this in the forum - and somewhere in the 'bloofusphere' that is the Internet , someone said that on Sept 31st (or whatever date) they were good to go, accreditation-wise, along with the name change. Now, this is what I get for believing someone. I can't say with any certainty that the info came from Dr. Lady himself, and I'm too lazy at this point to look it up.

I was "Lulled" into submission I guess. As per the Dutch word 'lul'. I'll let Google translate it for you. Here it is. https://translate.google.com/?hl=en#view=home&op=translate&sl=nl&tl=en&text=lul

As I said, there's no defense I can offer. I made a huge mistake believing in this and I'm sorry.

 

I always liked him and considered him to be one of the more intelligent and thoughtful participants on the board.

I certainly do.

Notably, none of it seems to have concerned WLC's academics as far as I'm aware. It all seemed to have been Byzantine bureaucratic stuff concerning whether/how DEAC procedures were satisfied. And not all of the fault there was WLC's. DEAC seems to me to bear some responsibility for how they handled this.

It doesn't need the after-the-fact shouts of "scam" and "mill". I don't think that ILM or WLC were ever that.

But this little crisis certainly could have been handled better by both WLC and DEAC. If it had, then WLC might still exist today. It's a bit of a tragedy, really.

 

How lovely. And I always liked Sheila D. She was also intelligent and had a great sense of humor (she had a thing for loofahs that was hysterical). And look at the entertainment she provided to all of us when her um-school sued me.

Oh, wait, am I putting David Lady in the same category as Sheila? You bet your ass I am.

I've never commented on ILM. In fact, I was impressed with their offerings in the old days, keeping in mind that my field was logistics - I had already been in trucking a few years and had been both a trainer and a writer of regulatory documents and manuals. ILM was right in my sphere of interest. But I also do not presume to know how ILM came to be in the back pocket of David Lady. Once it was, it lost its primary mission and became a vehicle for WLC's worthless-but-allegedly-accredited MBA.

But as for WLC itself, whether standing on its own or as the reconstituted ILM, it was a scam and a mill from day one. And the thing that amazes me is that a few of you are still defending David Lady. I've been calling WLC a mill since its early days, just as I call a certain um-school in the Caribbean a mill these days. And when, as "provost" of WLC, Lady went ballistic against DEAC on YouTube, that sealed his reputation in my mind.

Guess what, kiddies - people can be nice and sleazy at the same time.

Personally, I would imagine that David has been on DI since his last known appearance, cited earlier by Kizmet. But under a different name. Just like Rich Douglas - when people talk about you, it's difficult not to want to read about yourself. It's why some people even check into DLT every few months to see what they're saying about us. On the other hand, Lady could be in psychological d-e-n-i-a-l, but he's done a great job at providing entertainment for us even in his absence.

 

It was a form of groupthink that a lot of us got caught up in. And don't think it can never happen again. All is takes is one person that has established credibility and is now the underdog fighting "the man" to generate this perfect storm. It makes for such a compelling story that it's easy to set aside logic and listen to arguments that you normally would dismiss. I'm not stating anything that in hindsight is obvious. But that's just it....we now have the benefit of hindsight and the emotions have ebbed.

 

So true. In the past, Dr. Lady had prominent positions at Aspen U. and Taft U. to his credit. But the WLC debacle is what people will remember.

 

So the Institute of Logistic Management (ILM) lost its DEAC accreditation too? The website states "
Division of WLC
ILM is a division of William Loveland College (WLC). WLC is a Not For Profit school located in Loveland Colorado and accredited by the Accrediting Commission of the Distance Education Accreditation Council (DEAC). The DEAC is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency, and is also recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA)."

Now, it seems to be misleading of its accreditation.
URL: http://www.mylogisticscareer.com/

 

All I've got is this

https://opencorpdata.com/us-co/20171403232

I can't really be bothered to figure what it means, if anything.

 

I'm not quite sure what it means either, but it does seem to get more and more funny.

Just for the halibut, I did a Google search on William Loveland College today. Notwithstanding that there are no hits for a WLC web site at all, the first two hits it returned were Alerts from the Better Business Bureau. And even they're pretty funny.

 

Dr. Lady still (January 2019) has a site on LinkedIn, where he is identified as CEO/President of GeoSpace Labs (Fort Collins, CO), described as original equipment manufacturer "to some of the most important safety technology in the North American markets, producing federally certified products that make people safer, every second, of every day."

 

Wow! It must be working because I feel pretty safe.

 

Well good for him. It looks like they have technology for over-the-road trucking companies and are a safety oriented organization. Certainly not in education any longer but an argument can be made that he must educate his customers to accept the company's technology to make them safer. Being in the safety industry as well, non-related, I'd like to think of it as a noble endeavor and in Dr. Lady's case a second chance in a new niche.