Exit stage left

Best wishes to you Dr. B!

My interst in DL was aroused by your book (the edition with a baby blue cover I believe). It helped educate me and give me the right questions to ask.

I hope you enjoy all you new exploits.

Adieu Monsieur!

North

 

Dr. Bear,

Best wishes, and may God bless you!

Thanks for all you've done for us distance learners!

 

Well, I wish you a great vacation--if anyone deserves some time off from here, you certainly do. I hope you do not remain a stranger from this group after you do return; I have always appreciated your comments and your expertise in this field. Thank you for all your help!

Scott Metcalf

 

Dear Dr. Bear,
Have a wonderful trip.
Its been a long time since we first spoke (via phone) in 1978 when you were still in Little River.
All the best to you and yours,

David Reesor

 

Have a good vacation and a safe journey. Hurry back. We could use some stories about Siberia!

Russ

 

Excellent news. With Bear gone (and that pest Levicoff also gone) now I can start my own degree mill, Kennedy Melon Reserve University, in peace!

 

does this mean there's going to be no 15th edition of Bear's Guide?

------------------
Sam C
www.uci.edu
UCI 2002
[email protected]
Confusion is just the path to insight and knowledge

 

Dear Dr. Bear,

You've changed my academic life with your personal guidance. For the past 3 years I have been contacting you and you never failed to respond to any of my emails and inquiries.

Thank you for everything. I will always remain in your debt.

Eli

 

Ditto that. JB has made a difference. Can we all say the same? Always responded to my questions. How any person could take the crap that he has taken is quite remarkable. That is why most of us live life flying under the radar screen.

 

PSalmon writes: “Excellent news. With Bear gone (and that pest Levicoff also gone) now I can start my own degree mill, Kennedy Melon Reserve University, in peace!”

Memo from John Bear to research staff:
Gloria, please enter “KMRU” in the Millatronic Advance Warning system.
Edna, start the usual surveillance processes on PSalmon.
Cliff, if his or her bank balance is high enough, send the blackmail letter, along with our rip-off of the Peterson’s “we’ll put you in the book if you pay” letter.
Sedgewick, send out the memoes to our regular contacts at the FBI, the Postal Inspectors, Internal Revnue, and the Department of Fruit and Nut Inspection.

samc79 asks “does this mean there's going to be no 15th edition of Bear's Guide?”

Out of my hands. I think they’d be nuts to drop it, since it makes money for them, although not remotely in the league with their stable of million-plus sellers (What Color is Your Parachute, Moosewood Cookbook, Laurel’s Kitchen, and, improbably, How to Shit in the Woods). The essential thing is keeping the database up to date--both for the book and for the update section on www.degree.net. Actual research work on the 15th edition should begin in another 4 or 5 months. I guess we’ll know at that time, if not sooner.

PS: I really really do appreciate the kind comments posted. Thank you.

 

Dear Dr. Bear,

My thanks to you and your daughter Mariah for writing the 13th edition of "Bears' Guide To Earning Degrees Nontradionally." It was the single most useful resource in my search for an on-line undergraduate degree program. Without it I could easily have wasted my money, time and effort on a program from a "less-than-wonderful" school. The knowledge I gained from the book enabled me to find a regionally accredited school that offered a degree program that meets my needs. I am in my second semester of on-line courses and I am working towards a Fall 2003 graduation.

May your travels be safe, the people friendly and the vistas beautiful.

Warm regards,

Lowell Kinzer

 

John

When I first read your books in the early 80's I didn’t have a degree and didn’t know how I was going to get one. Now thanks to your books I have seven (including Harvard) and last Saturday was named “professor of the year” at the university where I teach as an adjunct. I know I join the thousands of others whose lives you changed with your books in saying thank you.

Denver

 

John--

Perhaps you are unaware that people who are involved with the HUX program actually end up working MORE for us after they've retired than they did before. And while we've never had the pleasure of having you as an instructor, it must certainly be said you've been an important part of our program. One of our professors recently spent some time in Mongolia, so don't be TOO surprised if you find an audience ready and receptive to the notion of distance learning.

May you find pleasure in the journey as well as the destination, delight in your surroundings and your companions, and may you come home refreshed, renewed, and ready once again to take on a world that is better for your attentions.

------------------
Nicole Ballard
HUX Phase III Advisor
Thesis/Graduation requirements
California State University, Dominguez

 

Dear John,

You've talked in various threads and in other forums in the past about the "post-mortem" edition of your guide, and how in it you will discuss all of the dismaying and hideous details about various degree mills that you have been holding back on all these years. I take your reference to a "post-mortem" edition of your guide to really refer to a "never happen" edition, and I'd like you to reconsider.

While your days of editing "guides" per se might be over, I think the problem of international degree mills and accreditation mills is such that a more narrative volume of 500-700 pages is really required. Take 5-10 years of your retirement to write that, and then get it published. I think you will have the satisfaction of seeing such a book, if well published and publicized by a major publisher, influence national policy.

So, show the courage and the chutzpah that Jessica Mitford showed when she wrote "The American Way Of Death." I'm not going to say that you haven't done yeoman's work in this field, and have been a major force for good. But I think a book such as I describe could bring national attention to this scandalous issue.

If you simply write, and document, the truth, you have nothing to fear. And we can all sit back and read the appalling details. And then make sure that new national legislation is passed to stop the United States' role in defrauding people with joke institutions. Even when they are acting from good motivations (probably the rarity of cases), degree-mill operators seem to think that it is their god-given right to start up "universities" in their garages or bathroom cupboards, or wherever. It should be just as tough to start up a business or institution calling itself a "university" as it is to start up, say, drug companies, banks, etc. The hypocritical populist twaddle that the degree-mill operators spout while enriching themselves at the cost of poor third-world people is no more defensible than if street-vendor scam artists selling "Rolex watches" or "Chanel No. 5" indulged in the same.

I'm wandering here, but anyway, you get the point. Write such a book as I describe and you'll have probably have the satisfaction of seeing your efforts change Federal law for the better.

 

StarrMustGo writes, in part, "If you simply write, and document, the truth, you have nothing to fear."

But I have been sued 8 times, while always* writing either the truth or my opinions. And I just learned this very evening, from a the Director of International Admissions at Golden Gate U, about a case recently concluded in the Japanese courts, where an education writer was fined US$50,000 for writing critically about a school he didn't like. The message was that unlike the US, where criticism of schools, restaurants, films, etc., is generally protected, not so there.
________
* Except for the time I confused the real Andrew Jackson (in New Orleans) with the fake one (also in New Orleans). The suit was filed by the owner of the real (if unaccredited) one, Jean-Maximillien Delacroix de Lafayette, who graciously agreed to drop the suit if I issued a public apology, which I was pleased to do.

 

This is trully sad news.

DL will never be the same without JB.

CFr

 

Dr Bear

I too have been a lurker in the newsgroup and have found your information and knowledge to be of great interest. I was saddened that after having tracked down the discussions to this URL after a long absence from my lurking, to find I will no longer have the pleasure of reading your responses and thought provoking replies.

Bon chance Dr Bear *says she thinking twice about further reading of Feynman lest she be tempted to exotic climes* and thank you...

the_synergist

------------------
"it's what we learn
when we think we
know it all that counts"
author unknown

 

Well the bad news is your buggin' out for a while, the good news is by the time ya get back I will have completed by bachelor's degree and will begin to blame you when my wife starts seeing the Master's degree stuff showing up

If possible please send letters to be posted of your trip, maybe they can set up a thread just on the sorta off topic "travels with the Bear"?

I look forward to your return... with stories and maybe even a request or two for recipes for a cokbook????

Best regards,

Dan

 

Dan Snelson says, "If possible please send letters to be posted of your trip"

There is actually supposed to be an internet cafe in Kyzyl, Tuva. Perhaps there could be direct transmission. But don't hold your kysyl. We shall see.