Chadwick University anyone?

Actually, my statement didn't quite make the point I intended it to, because I got interrupted in the middle of composing it and pressed "send".

What I thinking about was the famous scandal in which Marilyn Chambers was photographed as the lovely woman holding a baby on the front of the Ivory Snow box... which managed to hit store shelves only about a month or two before "Behind the Green Door", one of the most visible and controversial X-rated films of it's time, hit the market, with the very same Ivory Snow-pure Marilyn Chambers as it's star. Definitely a PR problem for Ivory

It's not the same, but somehow, thinking of AICS now just reminds me of the Ivory Snow thing... "Well... maybe it's not quite as pure as it looks."

I also agree with John... I'd like to see hot dog manufacturers list on their label something like "Contains no more than .01% fly wings and rodent parts", because apparently there are standards established by our government that permit those tolerences.

"Columbus University. Less than 1% of our graduates have had their careers ruined by using our degrees."

 

I know this thread is old.....

But I came across this guy who listed Chadwick University on his LinkedIn. I did a Google search, and this thread came up among the results.

Apparently he got into California University of Pennsylvania (now PennWest California), where he earned two master's degrees. He then earned an Ed.D. at ESU, where he is a CJ professor. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-richard-a-ruck-68a709167

I guess PennWest California doesn't mind faculty with phony degrees either.

https://www.calu.edu/inside/faculty-staff/profiles/linda-pina.aspx

 

Different times, if you look at the history, we have participated in many discussions about similar professors. Some professors got the job because their masters degrees but they got PhDs from unaccredited places but they use them because they feel that they need to be called Dr. for some reason.

Before Northcentral University and Touro International University, they were no DL PhD options in the US or Canada. A lot of professors got unaccredited PhDs mainly because they were no other options. You are judging them from the 2023 perspective but back in 1997, there were no DL PhD options available.

None of the schools that you mentioned are research based universities and they seem to be primarily undergraduate institutions, this makes me believe that most likely these professor jobs did not require a PhD.

I agree that these professors should not display these credentials but if you contact their universities, I can bet that they will tell you that these degrees are irrelevant because they were not hired based on these PhDs.

Kennedy Western was shutdown but I am not so sure about the legality of using their credentials. In any case, I agree that it is not good image for their universities displaying these credentials.

 

I would NOT call Chadwick "phony." They were always a real school. I know this is inexact and in the eye of the beholder, but it's not like they were just selling degrees.

This isn't exactly accurate. There were no 100% DL doctorates, but by that time there were several doctoral options that required very little periods of residency, not enough to interrupt one's career or job.

The legality of using such a degree varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, from situation to situation.

As you imply later in that post, a school should be more wary of ALL the credentials claimed and listed in faculty information, even if the degree in question was not weighed in the hiring process.

Personally, I feel a claim of a fake degree is disqualifying, no matter what the job is or what qualifications were required for it. It's a matter of ethics.

 

Nowadays afaik ".edu" schools are all legit. Seems like that wasn´t the case 20 years ago

 

I just found an .edu institution that operates under the Florida legislative provisions to provide religious degrees and awards for religious vocations and ASIC accreditation.
I guess I was wrong with my assumption Until now I thought .edu means a school is state-accredited.

 

I too found the ASIC school with the .edu
What I assume is that based on their date of founding they got one of the .edus early on and were grandfathered. That is the case with Louisiana Baptist University.

"New Covenant International University was founded in 1978, and, in 1993, it moved its headquarters to Florida, USA. From 1990, numerous students from multiple nations earned awards from NCIU. "

https://newcovenant.edu/

 

When the domain was first being issued, there were not any controls on it. Now there are.

 

But any school that had one before a certain date in 2006 is "grandfathered" - i.e. they could get one back then without accreditation - and legitimately keep it now, still without accreditation. And nothing ever seems to get done with schools that falsely "inherit" a .edu domain from a defunct or closed school. Educause (or anyone else) never seems to go after them. The "controls" are not hooked up to anything. Dummies.

Here's an example from a previous post of mine:

"I remember a .edu domain that got passed along to a succession of unaccredited schools. pcu.edu once belonged to an unaccredited school - Plantation Christian University. That school became accredited, changed its name and the domain stayed behind. Somehow, it changed hands - to unaccredited Pass Christian University (never located in Pass Christian MS, btw.) It changed hands again - to Paramount California University, another unrelated, unaccredited school, that had ASIC accreditation for less than a month before it was rescinded. I'm not sure if it passed along again - to Pacific Coronado University, which did not last long, before being sold to Axact, the friendly fraudulent firm in Karachi."

It's here: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/newlane-university.57480/page-6

 

I'm not sure there is much significance in a handful of unaccredited schools using that domain suffix. I'd be surprised if many people actually relied on that to determine if a school is legitimate.

 

In fact that's why academia.edu exists despite being a commercial entity. They were grandfathered in.

 

In the 90s, I considered Chadwick for my adjunct career. I just wanted to put PhD behind my name to compete with others than had them. It was appealing, it was about 6K if I remembered and it was licensed. At the time, I did not know the difference between licensed and RA. I did a bit of research and found that the school was not worth the paper and it would not only not help my career but it will hinder it.

Many of the University web faculty profiles are maintained by the same faculty. I could add in my profile any degree I want like a DD from Universal Life Church or anything. If the faculty in question is already tenured, it is unlikely that listing a PhD from an unaccredited school could be banned by the University. There is a lot of legal work the university has to go through for this in particular if faculty has a union. The faculty member is displaying an unaccredited degree that was earned from a very low profile school, it is like saying that I have a Microsoft Certified Engineer qualification when we know that Microsoft is not qualified to certify engineers but it is not illegal to say that you are a microsoft certified engineer.

I disagree about the ethical issue, if I a say that I have a PhD from Chadwick, there is nothing unethical about it because the person probably does hold a PhD from this school. The degree has no academic value because it is not accredited by the department of education but the person is not lying. The degree hurts more than helping and proof is this discussion as this person is not getting good reputation by mentioning Chadwick but the faculty member has the legit right to do it.

If I want to shoot myself in the foot, that it is my choice and there is nothing unethical about it as I only hurting myself.

 

We talk about accrediting agencies not recognized by the USDoE and recommend foreign country schools that have legitimate accreditation. Yet, those accreditors are not recognized by the USDoE either.

 

I disagree. It comes down to the impression you leave in others' minds. They're not going to hear "Chadwick" and make the distinctions you're making. They will just assume it's yet another of thousands of schools they've never heard of and further assume you have a legitimate doctorate.

Even if you were somehow able to give people the correct and complete information, it can still be misconstrued. That's because, again, they don't make these distinctions. Some won't know what "unaccredited" means. Some will hear that term and think "degree mill." Others might get the right picture--which no graduate of Chadwick ever wanted, I'm sure.