A St. Regis Valupack: Buy in Bulk

We should send the ODA a correction: "Knightsbridge" shouldn't be in that list.

On May 21, in this thread, John Bear wrote:

Regarding SRU itself, SRU President Thomas Carper has stated that he plans to get SRU off the ODA list, but has lost contact with Liberia because of the war, and has to wait to re-establish contact to obtain documentation that the ODA is demanding.

What "comment" do you need from Len?

 

Dennis Ruhl wrote:

*Checked their website just to make sure they hadn't adopted Harvard's curriculum as Len seems to intimate.

I can still buy my honourary doctorate for $1,000 and be assessed for a doctorate for $1,500.

Any discussion involving the name St. Regis and the word education is so much horse crap. Case closed.*


It sounds like you have a problem with SRU being inexpensive, Dennis. They certainly cost less than Cal Coast, plus they're MoE accredited

In reality, SRU is seeking to compete for a proportion of the higher education market with US RA schools, state approved schools, and other DL providers. It manages to offer its services at a cheaper price than others do. That gives it a competitive edge.

The assessment process is different from one involving supervision in terms of the amount of work it requires from the faculty. A comparison with fees for research-based programmes is inaccurate. Try comparing it with the fees for a doctorate by published work in SA or elsewhere for a fairer analogy.

As for honorary degrees, they're not academic awards and shouldn't be regarded as such. Are you seriously saying that there is no link between financial donation to other schools, including US RA, and honorary degrees? See the chapter in Bears' Guide for more on this.

SRU uses the money from the honorary degree program to offer scholarships to Liberian students. That's one of the reasons why SRU continues to enjoy the support of the Liberian authorities - it gives something back for the development of the country at a time when most other higher education providers (such as U of Liberia) can't operate to any extent.


Dennis wrote:

*But nothings changed - you can still buy a friggin degree today.*


Not so, Dennis. The requirements for earning a degree at SRU are stated clearly at the website (http://saintregis.edu.lr - note the .edu.lr extension, only available to legitimate Liberian educational institutions), and whilst they're flexible within their bounds, they are strongly adhered to. It is emphatically not a case of selling degrees outright, which seems to be what you're implying.

Over the past six months, we've also tightened up on those who submitted fraudulent or deceptive applications for assessment. We know a couple got through the net in the past, as they would in almost any DL school unless we started insisting on vivas for all candidates (and few DL schools do that as a matter of policy), but we think it's much less likely that they will now. Nevertheless, when you're open, liberal and flexible as a matter of policy, there are always those who will comes sniffing around looking for an easy option, and we've got to be vigilant about making clear that SRU isn't in that game.

No more than 10% of applicants - probably considerably less - qualify for a degree by portfolio of evidenced life experience alone. The rest write essays, complete research and take exams to complete their degrees. That's what our professors and assessors are there for after all - they mentor the
candidate through these stages.


Bill Dayson wrote:

*These instant universities affected American addresses in the Washington DC area. Yet depite Len's claim that the NBOE is somehow authorized to set up branch campuses anywhere in the world, it seems that degree granting post-secondary institutions in the United States must be licensed/approved by their jurisdiction before they can legally operate.

Were any of these SRU marketing fronts licensed to operate as universities in Virginia, DC or Maryland? I'd be very surprised if any of them were. (I'd guess that's why they semi-dissappeared as fast as they had appeared.)

Yet depite their sudden appearance out of nowhere and the strong possibility that they were operating illegally, they already possessed Liberian accreditation! How was that miracle possible*


They were not operating illegally. Students from each institution received a degree awarded *from Liberia* by the partner institution under the aegis of NBOE. The degrees were not awarded *in Virginia, DC or Maryland* and this was made clear to the very few who enrolled. Nor were the institutions concerned in any sense based *in Virginia, DC or Maryland* with the
exception of their webservers.

It isn't illegal, IMHO, to advertise the services of a foreign company in any of these states. That in effect is what these websites were doing. They used names tailored to a US market because that was an effective marketing strategy. In many countries, sounding *American* is a major marketing draw.

The addresses in DC were not campus or office addresses but merely third-party contacts of individual staff who had agreed to handle enquiries and pass them on to those who could deal with them. The significant administration and other activities for the branch campuses, including awarding degrees, was all done in Liberia.

I'd admit this is a slightly casuistic way to do things, but our lawyers advised us that it was within the bounds of what was permitted, and should NBOE seek to do so again, there is nothing stopping it.

The NBOE accreditation is the simple matter here. All the branch campuses were created by NBOE. NBOE had full control over all their functions, ergo awarded accreditation from the word go. They were effectively wholly-owned subsidiaries of NBOE as the parent corporation. It wasn't as if NBOE was inspecting someone elses's operation and deciding whether to accredit it, which would be a much more lengthy process.


Bill wrote:

*In my opinion, this little episode is strong evidence both of what SRU/NBOE really is, and of the academic credibility of Liberian "accreditation" in general.*


Well Bill, it depends what you think it is, and whether you're prepared to change your mind. What it is, is a commercial higher education provider competing in a crowded marketplace the best way it knows how. But if you've already made your mind up that such an animal isn't for you, or that anything coming out of Liberia is automatically suspect, there's not a lot I can do to convince you otherwise, is there?

By the way, I note that some of you, notably *piratesmac* are interested in reading my dissertation etc. submitted to SRU, to see if it comes up to your expectations of a RA standard dissertation for that award.

Before I do so, and I'd be happy to make it available in that way in principle, could I request that *piratesmac* in particular, since he's the one who's asking repeatedly for this, identify himself as I have done and detail his credentials to make a judgement on work submitted at the masters and doctoral levels in the business field? Because, piratesmac, you will be making that judgement, and posting it here, won't you??

You'll forgive me if otherwise I don't take requests and consequent judgements from anonymous posters terribly seriously. Piratesmac might be eminently well qualified for the task; alternatively he might not have any qualifications at all in my area and simply be looking for an excuse to throw mud at SRU.

I wish you all good day!

Regards,

Len

 

Dennis,

You need not pay $1500 for your SRU PhD.
I recently communicated with one of SRU's advisors about this. He has offered me an SRU PhD for $500!
I can provide you the name if you wish.

PS I'm sure Len and his boys have some wacko explanation for this also!

 

Who owns St. Regis?

Dr. van der Walt, I have a question and would appreciate a simple and straightforward answer.

What are the names of the individuals (or individuals) who own St. Regis University? If it is owned by another corporation, please name the corporation and its principals.

In advance, I thank you for your reply.

 

Len, thank you for your very helpful responses. A couple of questions more, if I may:

1) On 14 August 2003, you directed us to the Website http://www.thedegree.com. May I ask why you did this? Do you know who authors, owns, or sponsors it? Or did you have some other reason to believe it might be a legitimate ranking?

2) On 15 July 2003, http://www.saintregis.ac/main.htm included the text: "The internationally renowned expert on distance learning degree programs, Dr. Richard J. Hoyer, has included St. Regis University in his best selling book A College Degree in Your Spare Time Through Distance Learning as one of the Top 20 colleges and universities." I will give SRU full credit for subsequently removing this text. But would it be correct to conclude from its temporary presence that post-Hoyer, there is at least one person with control over the content of SRU's Website who is pro-Hoyer and willing to post non-factual material on the Website? Or was there, in fact, a factual basis for calling Hoyer's book "best selling"?

 

I go look at the website which says I can buy a degree. We have heard many testimonials? from people who have been offered degrees for no additional work.

This fool Len keeps repeating that what is obvious is incorrect. Unbelievable!

 

In the Commonwealth of Virginia:

"No person, firm, association, institution, trust, corporation, or other entity shall use in any manner, within the Commonwealth, the term "college" or "university" or any abbreviation thereof, or any words or terms tending to designate it as, or create the impression that it is, an institution of higher education in its name or title, or in connection with its official business or in any literature, catalogs, pamphlets, or descriptive matter, unless such person, firm, association, institution, trust, corporation, or other entity shall have obtained the appropriate approval, as provided in this chapter, to confer degrees, offer programs or courses for degree credit, or to award or issue certificates or diplomas within the Commonwealth or unless exempted from the provisions of this chapter pursuant to §23-266 of the Code of Virginia or unless authorized to do so by the director of the council while a request for approval is pending before the council."

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+reg+8VAC40-30-20

What's more,

"An out-of-state institution must receive approval from the council prior to offering any degree program, program of study, course for degree credit, or telecommunications activity at a site within the Commonwealth."

http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+reg+8VAC40-30-130

But that wasn't what SRU/NBOE was doing, was it? What you actually did was create a least seven bogus internet universities. They all had their own names and they purported to have American addresses.

But if NBOE is in the habit of creating phony universities that have no existence apart from a mail drop and a website, and then immediately "accrediting" those shams, doesn't that demonstrate that NBOE "accreditation" is totally worthless?

 

piratesmac wrote:

Hmm, piratesmac. Still anonymous, I see. Amazing how easy it is to sling mud from that position. I guess I won't be sharing my dissertation with you after all.

Well, you've made an accusation there, and I think the burden of proof generally falls on the accuser (except in Oregon, where it's *we think you're a degree mill, prove to us you aren't*). Would you care to provide us with:

-your name;

-the name of the SRU adviser in question;

-a copy of the email correspondence in which this alleged offer was made so that we can investigate the matter?

I'm not saying that discounts are never offered in cases of genuine financial hardship - that's why we have a scholarship fund, after all. What
interests me is what you've told your adviser in order to qualify for the discount you claim. I wonder if what you've said is true?

Delighted you're considering a PhD with SRU, though. From your previous comments I thought you weren't too keen on our operation, but it's nice to see that people of your obvious high calibre are coming round to our way of thinking. I trust you'll use your degree with pride if you succeed in meeting the requirements - we'll be particularly delighted to count you
among the SRU alumni.

Of course, you might have made the whole thing up, right?

Regards,

Len.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to comment, Bill. The articles that Alan Contreras has published in a personal capacity show a view of the NBOE and of SRU that is at worst false and at best badly skewed. Many of the *facts* that he reports are inaccurate - for example, the NBOE is based in Liberia, not the US (80, Broad Street, Monrovia, since you ask - an address it shares
with a number of other businesses). It also has a base with SRU, which it owns, at the S&G building.

The issue of how NBOE accreditation is acquired has been raised before, but a reading of the full NBOE email posted here will show that its accreditation is not automatic. The $50K fee (considerably less than that charged by some accrediting agencies in the USA) is refunded if the application is not successful, which I would say is a very fair deal indeed.

There are two categories of Liberian school. The highest category is of schools directly accredited by the MoE, including U of Liberia, SRU and Robertstown. Then there's schools not accredited by the MoE but accredited by NBOE, which grants them a level of approval that is less exacting than the four year MoE accreditation process but nevertheless confirms that a school meets certain minimum standards of procedure and quality assurance. Concordia falls into that latter category. All award a legal *Liberian* degree.

Breyer State awards SRU degrees, so is in the higher category.

Knightsbridge has had nothing to do with Liberia since 1993, when as part of a very brief change-over period it acquired a Liberian license. It is entirely unconnected with NBOE or Liberia today.

The difficulty I have with Alan Contreras' comments is principally that he seeks to draw a distinction between some MoE accredited Liberian schools and others. That distinction is false. The same MoE, and the same processes, accredit U of Liberia, Cuttington, SRU etc. Accreditation takes four years typically and is certainly not automatic. Why do you think we'd have bothered with the cost and hassle of going through Dominican/IUFS approval in 2002 if we could have been certain that we'd achieve the Liberian accreditation?

So, my question then is, how does Alan Contreras objectively distinguish between accreditation for U of Liberia and accreditation for SRU? They're exactly the same thing. If Oregon accepts any Liberian degrees at all as meeting their standards, there is no objective reason to accept U of Liberia and not SRU. I'm also at a loss to understand how it is that the Oregon ODA,
without at any time having so much as telephoned the Liberian MoE or embassy, somehow acquires the ability to inspect and approve/disapprove of foreign schools such as SRU without even visiting their facilities in Liberia. Isn't that precisely what WAUC used to do with its domestic clients?

I ask also out of curiosity; what are Mr Contreras' credentials to inspect schools? Has he sat on a regional accrediting panel, or does he have significant teaching experience in a GAAP school? Does he even hold a doctoral degree? Or is Oregon, like California, effectively treating approval of institutions as part of their consumer affairs portfolio rather than as an academic matter?

In the unlikely event that neither he nor his staff at the ODA have these or similar qualifications, why should we take their judgements as having significant merit?

Regards,

Len.

 

It is a legitimate ranking. The ranking was compiled by SRU based on a survey that we undertook among distance learning students in a fair and objective manner. SRU owns the site and is responsible for the material on it; however, it does not edit those results to meet any particular desired outcome. We don't want to support Charles Taylor in any way, for example. But that's what our survey showed people were saying when we surveyed them about African leaders (bear in mind that a significant number in that survey were Liberians) so we reported it accurately. Don't shoot the messenger!

You might well decide that anything produced by SRU is automatically suspect. But all we're doing is commissioning research on areas of interest to us and then publishing that research. Where it favours us, it's useful marketing. Where it doesn't, so be it. My reference to the site posted here didn't point out the SRU ownership. But that fact doesn't, in my opinion
(whatever it may in yours) invalidate the ability of SRU to provide and report objective data.

2) On 15 July 2003, http://www.saintregis.ac/main.htm included the text:
"The internationally renowned expert on distance learning degree programs, Dr. Richard J. Hoyer, has included St. Regis University in his best selling book A College Degree in Your Spare Time Through Distance Learning as one of the Top 20 colleges and universities." I will give SRU full credit for subsequently removing this text. But would it be correct to conclude from
its temporary presence that post-Hoyer, there is at least one person with control over the content of SRU's Website who is pro-Hoyer and willing to post non-factual material on the Website? Or was there, in fact, a factual basis for calling Hoyer's book "best selling"?


Rick Hoyer's distance learning book has really very little bearing on the operation of SRU today, nor on the issues of SRU's operation I was referring to in describing the post-Hoyer era. His book is favourable towards SRU and thus we thought it could still act as effective marketing for us without us having to embrace other aspects of his reign. However, after this, we decided that this wasn't such a good idea, and removed the text. It's been
gone for a good while now, and we have no plans to bring it back.

Bear in mind that the saintregis.ac site is an old one and we occasionally test out pages there. For the current story on SRU, visit http://saintregis.edu.lr

Kind regards,

Len.

 

I don't know what you're looking at, Dennis, but the SRU website at http://saintregis.edu.lr/the_process tells you how APL assessment works chez nous.

Where I come from, the point at which you start calling your opponent names is the point where you admit you've lost the argument on the facts.

All best wishes,
Len

 

80 Broad Street is the registered head office of dozens, if not hundreds, of shipping companies sailing rusty hulks. One would suspect it is the office of a law firm.

The S & G Building at 73 Carey Street coincidentally houses a law firm.

 

Re: Who owns St. Regis?

It is owned by another corporation, as I have stated before here. That corporation is the National Board of Education (NBOE) Inc, which is incorporated in Liberia.

I don't have access to a full list of its principals, but to the best of my belief they include Drs Blake Carlson, Richard Novak, Thomas Carper and Jallah Faciann, all of whom are officers of SRU. SRU is a wholly owned subsidiary of the NBOE corporation.

Regards,

Len.

 

What opponent? What argument?

I won't be your equal until I send $35 to the Universal Life Church and get my fully legal doctorate.

 

"Is acquired", "is refunded", present tense? This seems inconsistent with the e-mail I received from [email protected] on 3 May 2003, stating "the accreditation preparation service was ended several months ago" (see http://www.degreeinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7376).

 

So, if SRU is on the same leval as Cuttington and the University of Liberia, why is it that when amission counselors from West African schools are asked about SRU they laugh??? Also, Why not tell us what schools are excepting SRU degree's and what Credential Evaluators are doing evaluations? I personally want to hear from one of them, so I can understand what criteria they are using to determine this information. I think its all fair to tell us, since you are being so candid about everything else.....

 

Apologies for the long quote, but one needs the full perspective.

If I may, Bill, bogosity is in the eye of the beholder. What NBOE chose to do was to market SRU in a way that offered it the opportunity both to diversify the product and the way the product was marketed. The American appearance of the entities created (for the sake of marketing) did not bely that the product they were retailing was *Liberian* in every respect. All the branch campuses did was make that product more attractive to a certain
section of the market via a particular means of advertising.


quote:

But if NBOE is in the habit of creating phony universities that have no existence apart from a mail drop and a website, and then immediately "accrediting" those shams, doesn't that demonstrate that NBOE "accreditation" is totally worthless?


Not so. As I said, these entities were not universities in the conventional sense, although they might have appeared so at first glance and could have developed into such had the experiment been given more time. They were marketing entities serving the NBOE in Liberia. In effect, all they were was
a different form of advertising for the same product - an NBOE, legitimate, accredited Liberian degree.

We recognised that this strategy was perhaps a step too far, and withdrew the branches. They've been gone a fair while now.

At the end of the day, anyone who enrolled in any of these entities would receive a legitimate, Liberian accredited degree awarded under the auspices of the NBOE. NBOE can award degrees in its own right as well as accrediting other entities to allow them to do so.

As for the *worth* of NBOE accreditation, that's a matter of opinion. However, the MoE of Liberia judges that it meets their standards, and that's good enough for many people out there. MoE accredited is MoE accredited, after all.

Kind regards,

Len.

 

So, if SRU is on the same leval as Cuttington and the University of Liberia, why is it that when amission counselors from West African schools are asked about SRU they laugh??? Also, Why not tell us what schools are excepting SRU degree's and what Credential Evaluators are doing evaluations? I personally want to hear from one of them, so I can understand what criteria they are using to determine this information. I think its all fair to tell us, since you are being so candid about everything else.....

 

My apologies, Mark. You're absolutely right. The error of tense was my slip of the finger as I wrote the post, and the service is indeed no longer offered. An email to the address Mark has given will confirm this.

Regards,

Len.

 

When the DegreeInfo.com lexicon is eventually compiled and placed online, the definition-by-example for "millspeak" will undoubtedly come from this thread.