California Coast University

This is a good point, Russ. But who ever brings it up? Right, the people who are trying to assert the legitimacy of whatever choice they've made. Because I post a lot, Union gets dragged into it. I've never, ever, tried to hold up my doctoral program as superior. But I've responded to those who would somehow draw this irrelevant distinction, no matter how stupid it is.

 

Hey, Rich. I bet you can't say "the list...are impressive." It are. It are. It are.
So there.

 

Hey, Uncle, I bet that Ray, the "Grammar Doctor" who is presumably immune to illogic and the occasional net chat typo, can (and did) say the following earth-shaking profundities (close to, but not to be mistaken for, profanities), above:

".............. you try so desparately"

"Other posting 3124 times, ..............."

"..............(accreditation) only exists in the United States anyway."

Oh, well.

LOL.

Thanks.

 

I think that Googling schools can be enlightening, so I'm glad to see somebody else doing it.

What's needed now isn't a contest to see who can be wittiest and most sarcastic, it's some intelligent comment about the data and what it means.

The fact that DETC is CA-approved and more recently DETC accredited isn't news. But it's true that a listing in both the Dept. of Education's badly flawed database and in CHEA's excellent one is a definite positive for Cal Coast, suggesting a considerable degree of credibility and adding to its degrees' utility.

There are too many names here for me to comment on each one.

But I notice that the list is mixed bag. Some of these people occupy posts where doctorates don't seem to be necessary, such as community college instructor, extension program instructor, support staff or even degree mill faculty. Others obtained their position long before they obtained their Cal Coast doctorate.

So I'm not really sure what to make of it. Apparently CCU has been useful to some college faculty who were teaching in remote locations with masters degrees, offering them the opportuity to participate in a doctoral program (of a sort) from where they were exiled.

But what did CCU contribute exactly? A vanity degree of interest mainly to them? A fig-leaf, allowing their schools to boast that a higher percentage of their faculty have doctorates? An opportunity to pursue real scholarship? (More on that below.)

I will say that this kind of data suggest that quite a few people out there don't think that a Cal Coast degree will damage their reputation. They proudly boast the degrees and their employers list them. That's a plus for Cal Coast.

One thing that I noticed in past searches is that online CV's suggest that CCU once offered Ph.D.s in pretty much everything. There are a number of CCU Ph.D.s in Engineering out there. I saw a Ph.D. in Philosophy. That anti-cult guy claims a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion.

That's a distinct negative for Cal Coast in my opinion, suggesting that the place was more mill-like in the past than it seems to be today. (The subsequent movement away from the Dark Side is a positive, though. Sinners can be redeemed.)

But I have to say that listing all these Ph.D. holders is kind of at odds with the DoEd, CHEA and DETC listings, because CCU had to drop the doctoral programs in order to become accredited and the accreditation doesn't apply to the doctorates.

There's also the question of weight. Ray's post seems designed to create the picture of weight, to suggest that CCU is a major doctoral-level institution. (It offered Ph.D.s in everything at one time, after all. It takes a Berkeley to do that.) But if that's so, then why did it throw it all away for DETC accreditation? Perhaps those doctoral programs weren't quite as substantial as one might think based on all the online CV's.

But on the plus side, there are several practicing psychologists in California boasting CCU Ph.D.s. So despite the fact that Cal Coast graduates didn't seem to have the most stellar record on the psychology board exams, the school seems to have been a viable route into he profession for some people. (It might be interesting to find out how their subsequent careers progressed compared to professional peers with conventional degrees.)

I think that Ramey has been discussed on Degreeinfo before. Apparently he was hired to teach business at Lewis and Clark State in Idaho in 1980, based on an RA MBA. It was only in 1989 that he acquired his Cal Coast doctorate. I have no way of knowing what impact, if any, his CCU work had on his winning a Fulbright fellowship years after that. My guess is that whatever scholarly work he's been doing has been hosted by and performed in the context of Lewis and Clark.

But there's a larger issue here.

A web search turns up lots of people boasting Cal Coast doctoral degrees. At one time CCU offered Ph.D. programs in almost every subject under the sun, and it's still teaching out doctoral students even today.

But there's very little evidence of any kind of scholarship or intellectual life at CCU. People with Cal Coast institutional affiliations rarely if ever publish anything. They don't appear on lists of conference participants. They never collaborate with other institutions in research projects. Nobody ever cites the results of Cal Coast scholarship.

On the doctoral level particularly, that raises red flags for me.

Just personally, I've long considered Cal Coast a mid-range CA-approved school, better than some and worse than others. It's never threatened to make my list of favorites.

Frankly, I've never been able to understand Degreeinfo's fascination with it, or why schools like Abraham Lincoln are never discussed here. When I see people writing with a straight face (or at least keyboard) that Cal Coast was one of the best non-accredited schools, I always wonder why in the world anyone would think that.

Now that Cal Coast is dropping the doctorates, strengthening their academics and are accredited by DETC, they have clearly embarked on a new course. It remains to be seen how that will play out, but I do consider the change to be positive.

 

barney google

I googled and gradgoogled every single school in which I ever considered enrolling for DL. In fact, very early on, I was almost taken in by an unnamed mill for which a google search produced a list similar to the one posted by the Muse. Here's the difference, Bill. Neither your postings of your googlings or my refraining from posting my googlings was intended to enhance our personal egos. Nor have I ever found it necessary to bang the drum in this way for a real school while continuing to bang the drum for various mills and attacking the entire forum with the myth of "RA or no way."

You know, that rhymes. And since our latest googler inspired me to poetry with his promotion of mill after mill--and his promotion of CCU on some sort of notion that a rising tide lifts all boats (nope; some sink like a mill-stone)--I'll share on this thread the pome I wrote when I was desolate in spirit after the Muse told me I was worthless:

Oh cruel Ray of that benighted Sun
which orient in Comoros yet Sorbon
would fain still feign to us a real School
and take the naive Newbie for a fool,
which shone upon the Voyage to Iraq
(so brief it must have been, for Ray is back)
and lit the instant search for Doctorate
besought in vain from Knightsbridge at cut rate,
and Yorker, yea, and many another Mill,
yet warms the supple morals of a Shill:
o Orb of Darkness making night of noon,
o pardon! if we show to thee our Moon.

Now, if only CCU had a master's program or even a doctorate (o dear dead days of yore, DETC said "doctorates no more!") in creative writing. I could sure use some help. Meretricious googling does not afford help to me--or to anyone.

Bill, your mastery--and good faith--as the google roshi remain unchallenged.

 

If NA and RA have the same utility, why do some job postings state "Degree from a regionally accredited school"?

 

This is a valid point. It is clearly substaniated by this qualification list from Grand Canyon University:

http://www.gcu.edu/personnel/online/

Qualifications:

>Masters or Doctorate degree from a regionally accredited college or university
>Previous online teaching experience preferred
>Experience in building online communities
>Blackboard applications recommended
>Minimum five years work experience, preferably in subject area
>Candidates must be willing to support the institution's mission and programs.

 

Re: Re: Re: Here We Go Again. RA or No Way

Damn! I was goin' for blowin' milk out your nose onto the computer screen. But, what the hey... I'll take it from either end I can get it.

Ummm.... no, not so much. Survey 1,000 people who place ads like that, and you'll find that the overwhelming majority think "regional" accreditation is the only kind.

Anyway... I'm not sure RA and NA do have the same utility. "Utility" would have to include acceptability and, clearly, NA doesn't have RA's acceptability, as a practical matter. But that doesn't mean that NA -- or, more specifically, the DETC flavor of NA -- isn't, when and if one really digs down into it to see what it requires, and then compares that with what RA requires, easily on par in most of the ways that matter with RA... as a practical matter.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Here We Go Again. RA or No Way

Makes sense! I agree with this notion...

 

Re: Re: California Coast University

Some very astute observations here. Everyone that I know (inside and outside academia) who has pursued a non-accredited degree has done it for one of the reasons outlined above. The typical scenario was the holder of an accredited masters in a position where the doctorate was not required.

California Coast did offer degrees in engineering and philosophy, so I can believe that there are people out there with PhDs from CCU in these areas. However, in the case of the "anti-cult guy" (Walter Martin), California Western (Cal Coast's former name) never was authorized to offer religion degrees (comparative or otherwise). It likely did not award a comparative religion degree to Martin, whose only accredited degree was in education (he had 3 unaccredited degrees). Martin consistently misrepresented his credentials throughout his career, so it wouldn't surprise me if he misrepresented the nature of his Cal Western doctorate as well. I certainly wouldn't hold that against Cal Coast. Now accepting a 10 year-old poorly researched book as Martin's "doctoral dissertation" was a millish kind of ting for them to do. However, this occurred when the school was less than two years old. Brand new unaccredited California Western University in 1976 was quite different from the now DETC-accredited California Coast University of 2005.

Tony

 

Are we so sure about CCU's authorization to award degrees in the 1970's? As I recall (and I was there), state authorization applied to an entire school, not individual programs, and authorized schools didn't go through an evaluative process. I don't recall--but I could be wrong--that authorized schools were somehow restricted in which degrees they were authorized to award. The degrees they were authorized to award were detailed in the scope of operations they submitted as part of their application for authorization under 94310(c). It could be that CCU ("California Western University" back then) didn't actually award the degree(s) in question, but it is also reasonable that they did.

 

My comments were based on Tom Neal's 1974 application for state approval, which was reproduced in one of Brown's "They Lie in Wait to Deceive" books. The application form had a section where the institution was supposed to list the degree programs that they planned to offer. California Western University applied for authorization to offer BA, MA and PhD in, I believe, 6 different subjects, none of which was religion. When I get home, I will look up the exact topics.

Martin was, indeed, awarded a degree* by Cal Western, but it would likely not have been in "comparative religion". He claimed that his masters degree was in philosophy of religion, when it actually was in education, so it would not have been inconsistent for him to misrepresent the nature of his PhD as well. Since his "dissertation" was actually a revision of an anti-Jehovah's Witness book that he co-authored in the early 1950's, he probably figured that he could call his entire degree program "Comparative Religion".

Tony

* Brown's book records a humorous incident in 1980 where Martin was sent a letter by Tom Neal (CWU/CCU President) stating that he never received a degree from Cal Western. After this letter was read on a radio show and Martin blew a gasket, Neal sent another letter apologizing (apparently they did find Martin's PhD somewhere in the files). The letter from Neal mentioned that he had been awarded a doctorate in 1976 but did not mention the degree's discipline.