Credibility of DEAC

'Steve Levicoff;497231]First of all, Jan, this is how you quote someone: in the proper format instead of being lazy and simiply using quotation marks. If you don’t know how to use the “reply with quote” feature at this juncture, at least learn to put the quoted material in italics."

irrelevant, distracting comments. Nothing more, nothing less. Next.

"Anyway, my reaction to the last few posts in this thread is, “Damn! This is getting funny!” I’ve been waiting to see who would call Jan on bullshit, and should have had faith that it would be Kizmet, as eloquent as ever."

Just to clarify, do you mean "eloquent" like your demeaning, contemptuous and antagonistic comments to many posters? Ah, now I see what you mean by your usage of the term "eloquent".

"Here’s the way I read Jan’s original post: As we all know from her history on the forum, Jan has been seeking to enroll in a doctoral program. It sounds like she’s been considering a DEAC program, and just in case she ends up not liking the program of her choice, she’s scoping how DEAC itself will respond to her whining."

This is the problem when Levicoff attempts to engage in mind reading another poster's motives resulting in ascribing HIS intent onto them. Sorry Levicoff, the scenario you present of my motivations are actually yours. Did anyone ever tell you that you possess a great deal of personal insight?

"We have heard some good things about DEAC in this thread, but all of the comments have been experiential or anecdotal (Jan’s submission being the most anecdotal of all). “Gee, I’ve heard that…” means nothing. Nada. And if that’s the type of “doctoral scholar” Jan will be, it would be better if she didn’t pursue a doctorate at all."

More projection of Levicoff's motives onto me. ZZZzzzzzzzz.

"Want a good example of how DEAC is perceived? Look at John Bear’s response. That is the empirical response of someone with a doctorate."

Yes, emprical, in direct contrast to your hostile, contemptuous anecdotal comments to other posters.

"I have found – and I admit this is anecdotal as well – that the biggest defenders of DEAC are those who hold a degree from a DEAC-accredited school. The biggest boosters of NA programs in general are those with NA degrees. Because the people with the most to lose if anything less than RA status is deemed inferior are those whose degrees are less than RA."

Yes, we know that you are antagonistic and contemptuous towards individuals holding DEAC degrees, but in fact I'm not and can see benefits to many who obtain them.

"As everyone knows, I have always been “RA or the highway.” (Or, as I like to say in my biz, “RA and the highway.”) We can trash NA when schools are not also RA because, um, we can. We don’t have to worry about 40% of schools not even considering our degrees worthy of admission because we went with the gold standard in the first place. Those who successfully went on to RA graduate programs or who gained successful positions in life earned those accolades in spite of their NA degrees, not because of them."

Levicoff, the lady doth protest too much! Enough with the grandstanding about how wonderful RA degrees are when a review of past threads reveals that your alma mater had its accreditation suspended by the Ohio State Department of Education at the time you attended due to the sub par nature of the academic work and dissertations of many of its graduates! In fact, many graduates of the doctoral program of Union at the time and subsequently were unable to obtain licensure in their respective states due to the subpar nature of their doctoral program.

"As most people know, my own position on DEAC is that they are a joke. I looked at them fondly when they were NHSC (prior to DETC) and accrediting the distance education programs of that time. But expanding the their scope to all levels of graduate education did not improve their credibility with me. But I have always advocated the notion that doctoral programs should have a residency component, and feel no more positive about a totally extermal doctorate, even if it comes from an RA school. (Don’t even get me started on the oxymoronish nature of the phrase online university which I also consider a joke."

Here is the crux of the problem. Levicoff can attack DEAC degrees and devalue their merits but when I attempt to gain clarity regarding issues and questions pertaining to DEAC he feels entitled to attack and misrepresent my motives. isn't that fair? of course it is.

Unfortunately Levicoff in your attempts to bolster your doctorate by devaluing ones from DEAC, what have you done academically or in a professional field in the past twenty years or so with your RA doctorate? Please let us know.

"No, Jan, I’m afraid that Kizmet was spot on in her critique. And you should know by now that moderators are not required to leave their opinions at the door of the school house. Besides, when you start using words like vindictive and ad hominem, you are admitting that you’ve been caught with your hand in the bullshit cookie jar."

No my friend, it is your hands that have been caught in the BS cookie jar as evidenced by your drawing grossly inaccurate and misrepresented conclusions regarding others' motive and falsely believing that you have a franchise on questioning matters pertaining to DEAC.

"Nonetheless, best wishes to both of you for the new year. I have faith that if you eventually choose the right doctoral program, Jan, they’ll turn you into a legitimate scholar. In due time."

Levicoff, I appreciate your prediction but quite frankly am not interested in becoming a "legitimate" virtual reality scholar like you.

 

Whoa . . . Jan, your entire response was totally on the defensive.

If I'm as insignificant as you say that I am, you need to learn the fine art of ignoring me. You already know how to be ignorant, now learn how to ignore.

If you don't, all you'll ever amount to is entertainment. Cheap entertainment at that.

 

"Steve Levicoff;497237]Whoa . . . Jan, your entire response was totally on the defensive."

Not at all defensive, merely factual.

"If I'm as insignificant as you say that I am, you need to learn the fine art of ignoring me."

There you go again ascribing your beliefs onto me. I never said that you were insignificant but that your braggadocio tendencies are compensatory and your devaluing posters with DEAC degrees was an attempt to bolster the doctorate you possess, which at the time you obtained it from your alma mater was not exactly the paradigm of academic excellence.The only reason I respond to your roiling posts is that they generally come on the heels of other posters with whom I'm engaged in discussion, with the objective of undermining my credibility. In short, your behavior is similar to gang members when they see a potential vulnerable victim, resulting in their moving in for the kill when they perceive an opportune moment. Cowardly, wouldn't you say?

"You already know how to be ignorant, now learn how to ignore"

As they say, ignorance is bliss, but that does not include letting cowardly behavior slide by when it is meant to undermine my credibility. I'm not that ignorant.

"If you don't, all you'll ever amount to is entertainment. Cheap entertainment at that."

And that my friend is exactly what you have been doing all these years; engaging in cheap entertainment/theatrics but unfortunately at the expense of others.

 

I don't know if APUS applied but I find the idea interesting. I believe the story popped up out there, and in here, a couple of years ago. It was said that APUS would have to graduate a class of engineers before ABET approval could be had.

I'm really fishing for information as I don't know the ABET approval process.

 

If 'comparable' means 'comparable' and not 'equivalent', then I'd say 'sure'. I think that there are differences between DEAC's accreditation standards and those of the regional accreditors, visible from the kind of schools that they accredit. The DEAC schools have typically seemed less substantial to me, in terms of organization, finances, facilities and so on. I'm less sure how much difference that makes in educational terms, though.

Is it even the accreditor's job to directly investigate student complaints? Aren't they more concerned with making sure that schools have a complaint procedure in place?

If a student has a complaint, isn't satisfied with the school's response, and complains to the accreditor, I'm doubtful whether that would lead to the school's losing accreditation. I've never seen that happen. It's difficult to know what happens behind the scenes. The accreditor might note that there have been problems with the school's complaint procedures on the school's periodic accreditation review. So that would become an area where the accreditor would want to see improvements.

I'm inclined to think that a disgruntled student who thinks that he or she truly got screwed and has a really good case might get a more tangible response by consulting a lawyer.

 

We don't need no stinkin' education. Give us some good times and some parchmernt proof of it.

 

I think that hearing about the actual real-world experiences of people with degrees from DEAC-accredited schools is helpful. I'd encourage them to keep posting those experiences.

John's reply wasn't tremendously informative. (He admitted that himself.) Some do, some don't, some do sometimes. I think that we already knew that. It didn't really tell us very much about the circumstances. I'm inclined to think that there were probably multiple variables such as whether we are discussing transfer credit or admissions to graduate programs, the kind of program one is applying to (certificates? doctoral programs?), the selectivity of the program and things like that. And John's reply only addressed admissions to RA schools. It didn't address hiring out there in the world-of-work. (That's where board participants' experiences are more useful.)

They would have the most motivation, wouldn't they? Is there anything wrong with them doing that? Maybe it's an argument that needs to be made.

Most people are going to defend their degrees and programs, certainly including those who graduated from low-end RA programs.

What are we talking about here? Transfers from NA into RA undergraduate programs? Admissions into RA graduate programs? Hiring after graduation? Or what?

I don't think that attending an RA program is the golden door to universal acceptance. There are schools (Harvard, Stanford etc.) with programs that accept less than 10% of their applicants. Many people with RA backgrounds find themselves excluded.

And you must know that at the doctoral level, the most important variable isn't the institutional accreditation of the school that awarded the degree, but rather the academic reputation of the department that awarded it. It's often more specific than that, since employers will want to know the graduate's specializations, his/her dissertation topic, and crucially, who he/she studied with. (That's why so many graduates of NYBOR-accredited Rockefeller University find scientific/academic positions.)

The idea that employers will hire anyone with an RA degree and that all doors will be open to them is kind of a Degreeinfo myth. It might be true for adjuncts in high-demand subjects like business at low-end institutions. But it certainly isn't the case in tenure-track academic hiring or in scientific positions outside academia.

If an employment position (or admission to an educational program) requires a particular degree, and if the NA degree is accepted for that purpose, then it's pretty clear that the individual succeeded at least in part because of the degree.

So what are you arguing against? DEAC's credibility or the idea of no-residency doctorates even if they are RA? You seem to gradually be losing your focus.

 

Nice try, Jan, but your timing is way off. Union was not even under investigation during my tenure, but several years after I graduated. And I was one of its biggest critics at that point. Moreover, the fact that many of its graduates were unable to attain licensure was due to the simple fact that Union’s psychology program was not APA approved. Nor was any distance-based program except for Fielding, meaning that graduates of any non-APA program could not sit for the boards.

I’ve always found it fascinating that when people try to trash me they go for the period in which Union was under investigation by OBR (the Ohio Board of Regents, which had nothing to do with accreditation). When you look past what happened there several years after I graduated, you’re still left with the fact that I have an RA Ph.D., and Jan does not. And that I am a known entity, and Jan is an anonymous troll. Obviously, I’m not too concerned with her poorly rationalized arguments.

A hell of a lot more than you, Jan.

But seriously, I graduated with my Ph.D. in 1991, and by the time I decided to leave academe and become a trucker (one of the best decisions I ever made, and still lots of fun), I had taught at several graduate schools, written five books, ran a respected think tank, and changed my world in positive ways. In short, I accomplished everything I had set out to do before I decided to change direction apart from academe. And yes, I still keep a foot in the doors of both academe and professional fields, I simply don’t feel the need to blab about it.

Hell, even today, if you Google me, you’ll find hundreds of hits, both positive and negative. It’s a given that as both an author and an education critic I will have both my fans and my detractors. But I prefer a quieter lifestyle today, so other than occasionally trashing someone like Jan here amongst friends, I don’t need to tout my professional activities.

And if you Google Jan? Um, nothing. Because you can’t Google an anonymous troll. Quel dommage.

And at least I know how to quote someone in the proper format. :mischievous:

 

It'll happen as soon as a DEAC school cracks the top 10 in the Director's Cup standings

 

Who says I have a big brain? It's just large enough to distinguish BS from facts.

 

The problem is that the reasons that many of the old school guys hated the DEAC for are outdated. Many of the RA schools do the same stuff now (Zero res). Yet they do not hate them...yet. Very good post. I think Dr. Bears study needs to be redone and it would show a very different results in the era out f control student loans and competition for those dollars.

 

Like most intellectual and academic fields, time marches on. For someone to be considered a current authority or expert they are currently working in that field. I know I would not want an MD who has done no work or continuing education from 1991. Just something to think about.

 

No accreditor is perfect. As mentioned by others, regionally accredited schools have been in plenty scandals, some have been recognized as subpar, and some have even lost accreditation. None of that immediately reflects that the accreditor is bad. That's not how it works and that's generally understood for regional accreditors.

However, when it comes to the DEAC, if any of those things happen that means the DEAC is a joke. Nevermind how much the DEAC has improved over the past decade and more specifically over the past few years under new leadership, because once bad always bad, no reprieve... SIGH...