Columbia State Rolls On

Thank you for your response. Since I appear to be ignorant and unable to determine the true meaning behind the post, can you please enlighten me?

 

What it said was that most of the posts are of interest to only a small fraction of the readers. Most readers are interested in finding convenient legitimate degree programs. But most of the posts are about degree mills and other arcana.

In another life, I am a birder. There are amusing parallels between the birding community and the degreeinfo community -- both groups love to track down rarities and to debate the identity and behavior of various specimens.

Perhaps the moderators should create a separate forum for discussions about degree mills. Something like the Restricted Section in the Hogwarts library -- only for those interested in defenses against the Dark Arts.

 

No, I assumed that the Ohio chapter of the NASW had posted accurate information on their website. They didn't. That's now my mistake??

And to answer your question Barry, I don't get any "gollies" (whatever that means) by exposing frauds, nor do I get paid by ABC or anyone else. What I get out of it is the satisfaction that yet another fraud has been exposed. The bad guy got caught. Very simple.

My question to you is if you get your "gollies" by defending people who buy fake degrees to defraud their employers, and end up costing the taxpayers (which includes you) an untold amount of money. Because, despite your protestations to the contrary, that's exactly what you're doing.

I personally couldn't care less what you do, it just strikes me as very odd that you'd decide to sit on the Columbia State side of the playing field.


Bruce

 

BarryFoster writes: John, what a sensationalistic way to try to put kidDL in his place. It is pathetic to bring up the *very* rare exception to justify this grandstanding.

John: I disagree vigorously that this is a *very* rare exception.

**The fake doctor I referred to had hundreds of patients who suffered at his hands.

**His mentor, Caplinger, had seven fake medical degrees (his first was a $100 MD from Metropolitan Collegiate Institute) and had been practicing for 20+ years. He sold millions of dollars worth of his "Immu-Stim" product, much of it to cancer victims, who stopped traditional treatment for this. (see www.quackwatch.com)

**Together they were involved in selling fake medical degrees to, apparently, hundreds of others through their own fake British Virgin Islands Medical School. Where are those people practicing medicine right now?

**And where are the more-than-1,000 (according to the London Times) "graduates" of Metropolitan Collegiate practicing medicine, and how are their patients faring.

**Consider the flamboyant (license plate on his Cadillac: "DOCTOR-1") sex therapist in Syracuse with his $100 Ph.D. (and no other degrees). Only one of his clients is known to have committee suicide, but what the heck, he probably would have anyway.

**The minister at a small poor church in the south who sold his church's bus to pay for his fake doctorate.

**The head of the police ethics commission for one of the ten largest cities in the US, with three fake degrees, no real ones.

**The police chief of one of the five largest US cities, with his Columbia State degree.

**The head of engineering for the city transit system in a major US city with a fake engineering degree.

**A senior computer programmer for the Iraqui missile program whose only computer degrees are fake.

**The burn "expert" who regularly testified against burn victims claiming they were not badly injured; his only degrees were fake. When he was exposed, a great many other cases had to be re-opened.

**The automotive engineer expert witness, testifying on behalf of a drunk driver who had killed people, that the car was defective; his only engineering degree, as exposed on the witness stand, was from Columbia State.

**And the trail of hundreds of others cases that are being re-opened where this expert testified.

I'm just getting warmed up. I could go on and fill a book. Someday I shall. Among much else, I spent a miserable month going through the 9 million resumes on Monster.com. I stopped after finding more than 5,000 dangerous-sounding fakes, but clearly there were many more. And that is just the 5% of people who are on Monster, and just the degrees they claim, and the even bigger problem, I think, are the even larger number of people who list degrees from real schools that they didn't earn.

BarryFoster writes: If there are problems with bogus MDs, go get the damn doctors. But do it right.

John: Good idea. I will.

 

You're not ignorant at all; you're just feeling the effects of a humorectomy, and there's no way to explain humor to someone who has just had a humorectomy.


Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

co-author, Bears' Guide to the Best Education Degrees by Distance Learning (Ten Speed Press)
co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)

 

I don't think it's a particularly strong statement.

I particularly enjoyed reading Truman's reponse to McCarthy ("probably unsent" the site says).

http://media.nara.gov/media/images/29/4/29-0307a.gif

I think everyone here agrees that anyone who does something stupid like practice medicine with a Cracker Jack box degree ought to be up before the local College of Physicians with some "splainin to do, Lucy."

Where I think people differ is not on the principles in question, but on the execution of how to go about correcting the problem.

One way to do it is to call up ABC News, or email them, and then have a camera (hidden or visible) catch the look on that person's face when they are dragged out before a nation. This is the tactic to which many have taken exception.

This is also the tactic that has been used by some here (or at least some readers of this board have used this particular approach), and that has raised some tempers.

I was very open in another thread about what happened to me recently because I wanted to demonstrate that this particular approach was indeed being used by some readers of this board, and I wanted to correct any misunderstandings. Some may have believed that I either held no degrees at all, or that I hold GAAP degrees. Well, I admitted on AED some time ago that I hold only unaccredited degrees, and I am not ashamed.

I have also said that my reasons for going through the process of attaining these degrees won't apply to very many people at all. I won't go into that again here.

You know - if I really, really had to, I could defend my doctorate. I could go into length about how I was cited three days after conferral in a published thesis at a respected university by someone who had no care in the world if I held any letters. I won't do that here because frankly, I don't think anyone really cares if I am at par with doctorate holders in computer science. I don't think it would do the "accreditation cause" any good for me to prove, point by point, that my doctorate is as good as any third tier university doctorate -- because if I were to do that here, I would potentially provide a "well if he was qualified and his degrees are unaccredited" rallying point for those who really should be pursuing accredited credentials. Which is to say -- although I could defend my doctorate using the Turing Test -- I won't do it in public because it would be wrong-headed of me to do so.

Moreover, this board is not about Quinn Tyler Jackson, and I don't think anyone gives a flying rat's behind about one square peg who didn't fit into polite society's round holes. (If they do give a rat's ass about such a thing, I assure them, I am a very small player on the world stage, and I know it.)

One day, when I go for my Ed.D. or Ph.D. in Education -- my experience with this whole thing will be invaluable. I know how it feels to be on the outside, looking in.

But for now, I would caution only that people practice prudence. This particular subject has great potential to carry into ad hominem attacks, and once that starts in earnest ... it is very difficult to turn back the dials of time to when everyone managed to disagree in a civil manner.

Perhaps a discussion of the symptoms (the fraud outfits and the fraudsters that use them) could become a discussion of the social dynamics that allow this to occur? Why does someone need a degree at all for many of the positions they supposedly do? Governments and states can pass laws that require degrees for positions that really only require qualified applicants. People with families to feed may be tempted to dip into the pot and pull out a dandy if rampant credentialism and position protectionism continues -- to me, fixing the reasons people do stupid things seems more appropriate than fixing the stupid things on national TV.

Others will, and have, disagreed.

Such is it.


------------------
Quinn

 

I don't really know what to think, to be honest.

I think there's probably a legitimate ethical issue that we probably could be discussing here--whether the ABC investigative journalism could or should be done differently, when it is appropriate or inappropriate or permissible to "out" someone for having phony credentials (and I do mean phony credentials; not degrees from legitimate unaccredited schools), and how, generally speaking, people could improve the whole public accountability process.

But there is an immense difference between "How can we deal with this very real problem in a more humane way?" and "Are John Bear and Bruce Tait profoundly evil people?" I have no desire to lead the Peasant-and-Pitchfork-Charge-of-the-Week against John--and unless and until this discussion focuses on alternative means to deal with the fluffed-resume problem, that's really all it is.


Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

co-author, Bears' Guide to the Best Education Degrees by Distance Learning (Ten Speed Press)
co-author, Get Your IT Degree and Get Ahead (Osborne/McGraw-Hill)

 

Tom -- I sincerely believe that the way this can be turned into something positive is to approach it from the socio-economic issues that cause the problem.

I don't think anyone here is evil (profoundly or otherwise) ... I do believe that what has been discussed by and far more often than not is symptom rather than disease.

To hold such a discussion, there have to be ground rules, and the ground rules have to begin with the understanding that emotions must be put aside if logic is to prevail. If school faculty and administrators really do read this board -- then the opportunity exists to examine what is failing those who grab into the snake pit and pull out vipers. Do the administrators of higher education care why shams exist? Do law makers care why schools would dare open in their state? Of course they do.

We can discuss it, or I can write a bunch of poems.

Another day has passed, another year,
"What will the next one bring?" is all I hear,
God Only Knows, but we can risk a guess:
Another of the same is what I fear.

But if the next year brings with it some peace,
And if it brings with it some Soul Release,
Perhaps the troubles of the last will fade --
So let us pray for this and fall at ease.

If it is but all our idle desire,
We pray for Paradise, but meet the fire:
At least we prayed for Paradise to Come,
Our hearts were right, if not what did transpire.




------------------
Quinn

 

Perhaps it is because you are wrong.

Stop shooting the messenger.

Rich Douglas

 

Thanks for the response - - maybe some background is in order to understand my b ackground

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly selfimproving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.

My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts for being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical.

Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we´d make meat helmets. When I insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reed spretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe.

Quote from Dr. Evil - Austin Powers.

 

I am repeating myself on this, but here goes again ...

First, I am not defending bogus degree holders. Please give me credit for my own position, without misinterpretation (I do take blame if I've not written clearly enough).

My issue is simply the manner in which this is happening.

---------------------

SOME QUESTIONS ON MY POSITION

Should bogus degree holders be allowed to go through life selling themselves via illegitimate credentials?
<b> NO </b>

Should something be done about bogus degree holders?
<b> YES </b>

Should bogus degree holders be:
(a) be considered innocent before proven guilty (verses using internet searches only to name individuals without understanding the specifics)?
(b) have the right to a fair trial (verses being tried and convicted on hidden cameras)?
<b> YES </b>

Are bogus degree holders evil people?
<b> Maybe. Maybe not. Every person is different. <b>

Should bogus degree holders be treated with basic humane values?
<b> Yes </b>

------------------------

Even though I'm coming out hard on this issue, I am all for holding people accountable and responsible. I appreciate the work of John Bear, Bruce, etc. My concern is the element of sensationalism. That's it. Nothing else.

I appreciate and intend to heed Quinn and Tom's call for civility. I do not believe that the individuals here are evil people. I've argued side-by-side with them for years on many subjects. I buy the latest version of John's book and recommend it to others. I will attempt to focus my comments to the issue at hand.

At the same time, we are talking about an issue where both sides have strong opinions - both sides being motivated by righteous indignation. It is a heated discussion. And we're in the kitchen.

This is no excuse for personal attacks, so I apologize for any comments that I've made where I've cross this line. I do stand my position though - my actual position, not a straw man created by another.

At the same time, a value I hold dear is equality. How about a call for civility regarding bogus degree holders? Why don't we extend the same civility to them? They are people too.

------------------------

OK, I've beaten that dead horse. However, there is a important point that I haven't seen addressed here - nor in the press:

BUYING THE LIFE CREDIT LINE - HOOK, LINE AND SINKER

Many of the bogus schools advertised "life credits". I'm convinced that there are holders of bogus degrees who truly believe they deserve a BA, Masters, Ph.D. (etc) because of what they've accomplished through experience.

What's the point? It means that there is a high likelyhood that people out there were simply innocently snookered. Yes, ultimately they should not use the bogus credential. However, such individuals don't deserve to get splashed in the press because of it. First, they deserve to be educated.

Why is this important? It means that there are at least 2 major classes of people who hold bogus degrees:

(1) The person who knows better and is intentially defrauding. This class deserves what they get.

(2) The person who sincerely believes his/her credential is legitimate. This class deserves the opportunity to correct the mistake - before they are exposed.

Recognizing these classes should cause us to act carefully. Using internet searches does not reveal an individual's motivation. A thorough, fair, non-sensational investigation does.

 

Am I really shooting the messenger, Rich? Or am I vehemently complaining about the messenger's tactic?

I am not wrong in demanding solid ethical treatment of bogus degree holders. You are wrong for defending such tactics that ignore basic rights.

As all regulars here know, there is a strong bond of friendship of key opinion leaders on this board. I think this is excellent. However, the shadow side is that the wagons get quickly circled if it is perceived that "one of our own" is somehow "attacked".

I would hope that we could raise issues and concerns with equality. We come out hard against bogus degrees. How about bogus tactics, folks?

 

John, I would love to see a book that sheds light (verses heat) on a serious societal problem. You would be doing a great service. You have the reputation. You are established. You are the right guy for the job.

I think national television discussions are educational as well. I agree that something needs to be done about all this. Since I don't personally have the energy nor calling to do such, I'm thankful that you are working towards the right goal.

 

The problem is reliance on secondary sources.

 

John, write that book!

John

 

Quote from BarryFoster
"What responsibility for seriously damanged lives should active participants in sensationalistic "outings" be prepared to assume? "

I must once again strongly disagree with you. Anyone using a Columbia State or other fake degree to get a job or promotion is bring it upon himself or herself. While I have compassion for their situation it is they that hold the responsibility.

------------------
Best Regards,
Dave Hayden

 

No need to resort to blackmail. Please stop torturing (by your own admission) the members of this forum with your SPOEMMING.

If not, I will be forced to respond in kind (as soon as I figure out what rhymes with Nantucket).

I believe I may speak for many when I express my thanks.


Gus Sainz
http://collegedegrees.tripod.com

 

John Wetsch writes, re a book on diploma mills: John, write that book!

John Bear replies: It is next on the list, when this silly cookbook project is done. It will be co-authored by Allen Ezell, who founded and ran the FBI's "DipScam" diploma mill task force for its entire ten or eleven year existence. Allen has permission to tell (almost) all, and my goodness, are there some stories there.

 

I recently had a brief email exchange with Bruce Tait in which I described my reasons for staying out of this argument. Dave's above statement seems so absurd to me that I couldn't resist a response...

So Dave, are you saying that a person who buys a fake degree deserves ANYTHING that ANYONE cares to do to them? If a Police Officer catches someone in the process of committing a crime, can the Officer do ANYTHING and justify their actions by saying that the criminal "brought it on themselves?" They may deserve punishment but it's not up to the Officer to determine that punishment. The fake degree holder may deserve to be exposed but I don't believe that it is up to you to determine their punishment. What Barry has been saying (and I along with him) is that it is one thing to notify the proper authorities, it is another to call in the media. In my own view, calling in the media is tantamount to prescribing a minimum sentence, it is, in effect, saying "No matter what else happens, I am going to see to it that you are publicly humiliated because you committed this offense." Finally, I would point out that if you want them to own responsibility for their behavior (buying a fake degree) then you must own your behavior as well. If you are the one to call ABC then that is your responsibility as it is your behavior. Dave, if you're going to be a vigilante, at least be a stand-up one.
Jack

 

By the way, who messed up the word-wrap?
Jack