"Canterbury University" of Hyde, Cheshire, England.

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by George Brown, Oct 9, 2002.

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  1. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    The funny thing is that your idea seems far more innocuous that the typical mill.

    I have a special place in my heart for unaccredited religious schools (ones that offer exclusively religious degrees not like the Doctor of Christian Commerce). I suppose it comes down to the reality that a person with an unaccredited Doctor of Divinity is likely not using the degree to deceive an employer, trick the government, steal jobs from properly trained academics etc. So, to me at least, it seems like a fairly harmless activity.

    But I also recognize that there are so very few mills catering to non-Christian crowds. You can get an unaccredited Master of Divinity anywhere. But what if your divinity is Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism? What if you're a Wiccan? A Greek Polytheist? A follower of Asatru?

    No, it's unjust! There should be a harmless diploma mill for people of all faiths. George Washington would have it no other way.
     
  2. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    OK well if I ever decide to follow through with this little plan I'll send you an honorary Pramudita certificate.
     
  3. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    So I got that going for me, which is nice.

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X48G7Y0VWW4[/video]
     
  4. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  5. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yes. In the last couple of years, a few degree mills have set up shop there. Their blurbs are pretty much the same. They claim they're legal and don't require accreditation by the NAB of Dominica. The article of Dominican law they say they're covered under is simply the one that covers formation of IBC's (International Business Corporations). Nothing specific about universities.

    It's likely legal to set up an IBC and give it a University name. That's done all the time in BVI and other jurisdictions. But getting around the Dominican NAB? I dunno... Years ago, you could set up your own corporation and call it a university in incorporation-friendly Wyoming. First, the state stopped allowing corporations to be named "university" unless they were a "real" school. Since 2006, any university operating in Wyoming has to be RA or NA accredited, or at least a candidate for accreditation.

    I don't know whether the Dominican "Universities" claims are true or not. At any rate, even if they're not - I've seen no enforcement by Dominican authorities.

    Some of these "schools" are owned by non-Dominicans. The rest? Who knows? Behind privacy screens.

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 21, 2015
  6. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    BTW - I'm not blaming Dominican authorities for not acting, even if these schools' skirting the NAB tactic is outside the law. How are the authorities going to know, if the school's only Dominican presence is some papers in a lawyer's file cabinet and the strings are pulled from offshore? As long as they keep things quiet and don't enrol Dominicans, the "schools" can probably go on with impunity for a long, long time.

    I don't see how anyone in Dominica has any duty to take care of a foreigner who complains he's been fleeced by mail / internet - especially when his money was likely never in Dominica and is now halfway across the world from there.

    J
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 21, 2015
  7. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    You can take a course and become a legal Doctor in California for a very low cost:
    Universal Life Church, founded 1959 in Modesto - Official Site - Become Ordained

    In California a degree from the ULC permits you to perform weddings (at least in some counties). I met one ULC doctor performing a wedding.

    It would be up to you as a lawyer (do they use that term in Italy?) to determine if it was legal to use in Italy.
     
  8. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    What about the Universal Life Church? Diplomas from Jedi Knight to Doctor of the Universe, all equally meaningful and at bargain rates - $10 and up. Don't think they sell any paper much over $50. I don't believe they discriminate based on faith. Yes, they're a Church, but I'm sure they'll accept money from those of other faiths - or even those who have none at all. Can't get a "doctorate" much cheaper than this. :smile:

    About "Master Doctor." Why not WIDU-style "Grand Doctor." As far as I know, World Information Distributed University (of Belgium) came up with the "Grand Ph.D." Then again, maybe they have a copyright on that title. :smile:

    Oops. Sorry. While I was fiddling with this, Ian Anderson "scooped" me. Apologies for the duplication.

    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 22, 2015
  9. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Novadar, there's a little nest of them registered to the address 8 Copthall, which is a registered agent for international business corporations. A Google search for "8 Copthall" university is a quick way to generate a list of them. (It would be shorter than the list of religious exempt institutions in Virginia, but that's another matter, and besides, surely some of those are legit.)

    Anyway, my understanding is that this nest has been there a while, not that it's new, but either way Johann is right that it seems no one has interfered with it.
     
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Now that's what I like to hear (and seldom do)! :smile:
     
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    True. It made me wonder if there's something unique about Christianity that makes its believers desire fake religious degrees in huge numbers. OK - Axact is said to have sold 200,000 fake degrees in Arab countries, but they were (I'm pretty sure) secular degrees. Yes, outside of the very infrequent bogus Mahatma (or similar) with six or seven unverifiable "doctorates," Christians seem to "own the court" concerning religious "bad paper." Strange. I have no explanation. :question:
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 22, 2015
  12. warguns

    warguns Member

    I've looked for a short explanation of this game without success. I watched many matches (with a pint in my hand) on village greens when I went to school in England but I never had a clue what was up. I just applauded with the others.
     
  13. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I doubt it would end well if someone opened up a Univeral Life Mosque in Saudi Arabia and offered to make anyone a sheik, emir or caliph for $20.

    But seriously, I suspect the reason is that America is uniquely positioned because we really insist on religious freedom in ways most other countries don't. And since Christianity is the predominant religion that's what crops up the most. Plus, if you're in it for the money you'll probably cater to the biggest market.

    We can sell titles of nobility and our government doesn't care. Not the case in some countries. We can sell religious titles. Not the case in all countries. And it's fairly cheap. I can set up a competing church to ULC for a few hundred bucks and a few minutes with a wordpress template. In some countries incorporation is a lengthy and expensive process.

    So we sit at the cross section of freedom, availability and low start up costs.
     
  14. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    According to the Pew Center, the U.S. is not as free regarding religion as some might think: http://theweeklynumber.com/1/post/2015/04/brazil-leads-the-world-in-religious-freedom-finds-pew-study.html

    Rankings on 'irreligion' might look even differently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_by_country
     
  15. novadar

    novadar Member

    Interesting Steve.

    I was concerned Johann was casting a wider net on schools in Dominica and ensnaring legitimate, innovative, and newer ones as well.
     
  16. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    As in many other situations I think you need to take the good with the bad.

    When I see an unaccredited school operating under a religious exemption in Louisiana, Florida or Virginia that's generally a red flag. And, as I delve deeper into them, my suspicions are often proved correct. However, there are other times when that closer examination shows that the school does appear to be completely legitimate.

    One of the reasons why accreditation is a "good" thing is that we don't have the time to evaluate every single college or university with great detail. HR people would never get anything done (it's a stretch as it is). But that seal of approval doesn't necessarily mean that schools without it are complete garbage any more than accreditation is an indicator of superior quality (as opposed to meeting a minimum set of standards).

    While there are certainly legitimate, innovative and newer schools in Florida, Louisiana, Virginia and Dominica they are unfortunately sharing space with schools that are illegitimate, predatory and well ingrained. That doesn't mean we should write off all unaccredited schools in those areas but it would be foolish to pretend they don't exist and that they don't cast doubt over their legitimate counterparts.
     
  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    It would be very foolish, and I agree completely that seeking accreditation is an ideal way to overcome this.
     
  18. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    In this regard you are more generous than I tend to be. When I find a school that's unaccredited I think "Guilty until proven innocent." That is regardless of "religious exemption". I never bought into the whole religious exemption thing. I typically think it's just an excuse for offering substandard degrees. Am I willing to believe that there are exceptions? Yes, I am. Unfortunately it's hard to figure that out (as Neuhaus said) and I'm not willing to work too hard to do it. I want to see the required courses. I want to see the faculty, their credentials and where their credentials came from. I want to see that some accredited school has accepted their credits in transfer or accepted their undergrads for grad study at an accredited school. If you don't show me at least some of that then it's a lost cause AFAIC. "Oh but my degree was very rigorous." or "I had to put in a lot of work for my degree." those sorts of statements are meaningless to me. Is this hardcore. Yes. Unapologetically, yes.
     
  19. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I should clarify that my "red flag" versus "guilty until proven innocent" mentality is also largely dependent upon context. Oh, you've sent me a clever email about earning a degree for under $2,000? Yeah, I'm not giving you the benefit of the doubt.

    It also has a great deal to do with what degrees are offered and what their proposed utility is. Are the degrees solely religious or am I seeing a whole lot of secular degrees with religious modifiers (my favorite was a Bachelor of Divinity in Business Administration)?

    Also, am I seeing this nonsense on the resume of an applicant? A current employee? Is the person attempting to meet a job requirement with it? These things matter in terms of what sort of opinion I form.

    For example, anyone ever heard of the New Seminary? It's an interfaith seminary in NYC that also has a DE program. I'm not even going to try to claim that a graduate of the two year program at TNS has an equivalent education to someone who earned an M.Div. from an accredited school. But, what appears to be fairly recently, they began offering graduate degrees as part of their training (they have a "satellite campus" in Maryland which allows them to bypass the NYS guidelines for degrees).

    Diploma mill? I guess you could make the case. I think their degrees are almost certainly below the standard of an accredited institution. But it isn't a place to buy a diploma with absolutely zero work.

    I bring it up because last year I had an engineer who was up for promotion include an M.A. from TNS on his resume. The M.A. didn't have any bearing on his job. He had a bachelors and masters from two highly respectable (and fully accredited) universities. This M.A., coupled with his inclusion of his interfaith ordination and mention of a ministry he ran in his spare time, was inconsequential. And it also didn't give me the impression that he was trying to deceive me in any way. So I had a very different reaction to it than to a business degree from Almeda.

    But I think this really just shows the hierarchical nature of "degree acceptance."

    Will my degree be accepted? Well, first you have to start at the very bottom rung of the ladder with "Is my degree legal to use?" If using your degree is going to result in criminal prosecution then stop, do not pass go.

    Then go up a rung, will this degree meet any requirement I have for licensure? If so (or if you are in an unlicensed profession) then continue upward.

    Will employers respect my degree? As stated elsewhere, most employers don't care to research colleges and universities (and even if they did, they don't understand how accreditation works). So, generally speaking, we have decided that a degree must, at a minimum, be accredited by some recognized accreditor to even be in the running to be called a "legitimate" degree by employers.

    But this rung gets more complicated when you throw religion in the mix; will this degree help me achieve a purely religious goal? Well, if you want to be ordained an interfaith minister then yes, the M.A. offered by TNS is going to help you along that goal. If you want to become a Ukrainian Orthodox priest than a degree (formerly a licentiate) from St. Sophia Orthodox Seminary is going to help you achieve that goal. If you want to be a pastor in one of the 4,500 congregations affiliated with LBU then a degree from there may very well help you meet your goal. Those goals aren't really impacted by employer acceptance because they are in a field unto themselves.

    I think there's merit to the suggestion that a legitimate religious training program not desirous of seeking accreditation should offer only diplomas or something other than an academic degree.

    At the same time, I come back to my example of the First Church of Neuhaus. Who is more qualified to determine what constitutes masters level knowledge in Neuhausian theology than our qualified ministers? Why should I subject myself to additional expense? If you want to study Neuhausian theology then come and study. If not, go study something else somewhere else.
     
  20. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Don't worry. I usually know the difference. And I'm not against any school -innovative or otherwise - solely because it doesn't have mainstream standing. But if the school lies - saying that it does... that's different. But how were you to know that? :smile:

    P.S. If a school lacks mainstream standing AND keeps known bad company --- then people have to tell me all about it, so I can make up my mind. In the case of these particular offshore-incorporated-in-Dominica things, masquerading as "schools" -- well, I don't think anything's been in doubt at any point.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 22, 2015

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