Defending the Non-Wonderful, or Seeking the Wonderful?

What he said!

A'int that the truth!

 

nosborne,

Since we're already off topic ...have you seen The Thin Blue Line? Allowing for any bias or manipulation, as indicated in some of the Amazon comments, I thought it a quite good and revealing documentary. It would be good to hear what the lawyers think of it.

 

Re: Ole Miss.

I'm not sure how to respond, Nosborne. I guess in the odd, unimaginable really, event I ever decide to retool into an attorney I'll have to head to Madison.

Within the realm of psychology, in the end I'm glad I didn't have access to a 'diploma privilege.' I was licensed in four different states as my career progressed and I'm glad I took the test, a real booger I might add, at such time as the information was still fresh. I don't know how other professions work but in psychology the cutoff varies from one state to the next. I was fortunate in that I did well and my score was always satisfactory. I can't imagine trying it now.

What I'm really thinkin' about as I approach retirement is seeing if I can get Fauss to hire me to wrench for him in his motorsickle shop.

 

What? That anyone with ideological views of post-secondary education that differ from those espoused is somehow just pouring obfuscation on top of a "deliberate lie"?

Is it such a "simple thing" as all that then?

It's not as simple as categorizing those with differing ideologies about such complex things "deliberate liar".

"Liar" and "con artist" however, are extremely effective words when trying to win kudos and cheers from the crowd, because they require no real analysis of the matters at hand. They evoke emotional responses. And such terms, when used in what is attempting to be a discussion, rather than a rally call, are quite effectively employed, as can be seen in this case.

Expressions such as: "The con artist works essentially by preying upon the greed and gullability of his mark" have no real meaning except to do just that.

As for this:

Tsk. Tsk. That's not discussion or exploration, and this is an Internet forum, not a court of law. I am quite willing to admit to rational compromises from my "ideals". My ideals about are not necessarily founded in pragmatic realities. For instance, that some forms of specific regulation should and must exist, I have freely conceded. This is a refinement from my original stance as stated in the thread-starting post. In other words, I have not rejected "all" rational retort.

But I do reject such unbending statements as noted above as being the kind of coping strategies that lead to the polarization that has already occurred between the UA and RA factions.

I am still young enough to modify my views in the face of new light. At 18, I was the recipient of the 1988 Tommy Douglas Bursary. To those who know Canadian history, that indicates that I was likely, at that age, rather socialist in my worldview. Over time, with experience, and under new light, I moved first towards the center, and then towards the libertarian right. I have considered what others have said, considered real-world experience, and have ended up at my present point of believing in socially responsible libertarianism.

I did that by examing alternative viewpoints, rather than categorically rejecting them because they did not fly with my earlier socialistic bent.

But anyway, this is neither here nor there.

Live long and prosper.

 

Re: Nosborne made a funny

Hey! "La Mordida" is from our part of the world, no fair!

Can't the: "fakes, shills, trolls, scammers, goatbags,rodents, fraudsters and others" invent their own damn concept?

 

This comment is so non-specific. Which athletes? Which "random interviews with students"?

Sorry, but this kind of anecdotal, undocumented, hyperbolic rhetoric doesn't exactly stand up as proof.

If you have something beyond your opinion to back up what you assert, I'd love to hear it.

Here's my point: even if you had some actual, precise, legitimate evidence of the lack of quality in accredited schools (against what standard, I don't know), this has absolutely no bearing on whether or not the educative processes at UNACCREDITED SCHOOLS are of sufficient quality. And since we know that every diploma mill on the planet is unaccredited, those unaccredited schools that wish to demonstrate they're legitimate have a long way to go.

 

Re: Re: don't forget the...........

Oh, fine. But so what? It is irrelevant to the question.

Because of some yet-undefined overlap (a few legitimate graduates from unaccredited schools, a few illegitimate graduates of accredited schools--none documented, of course), the two are irrelevant and accreditation of schools no longer matters? What?

 

Isn't the standard definition something along the lines of a school that grants degrees with little or no academic study?

"Diploma mill: An institution of higher education operating without supervision of a state or professional agency and granting diplomas which are either fraudulent or because of the lack of proper standards worthless." —Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

More than likely all the TRACS and DETC candidate schools along with your former place of employment in Virginia and the current crop of schools in candidacy status for regional accreditation.

Probably any school who graduates students with GPA's of 2.00 or less.

Any school (and the reports are numerous) that passes and graduates a student so he or she can remain on the ball team.

Also, students cheat in accredited schools as well as unaccredited schools. Ted Kennedy had someone take his Spanish final for him at Harvard.

And we all know the reports of MLK, Jr.'s plagarism.

 

If you, a Ph.D., instructor, and scholar, are not familiar with these situations, incidents, and studies, well......................

 

Rich,

Several major news networks have had special segments on the so-called "dumbing down of America."

If I am not terribly mistaken, Stone Phillips of NBC News, did such a segment not that long ago.

Reporters went to several colleges and interviewed students who were ready to graduate.

They didn't know any more than a fifth grader in elementary school.

Yet, they were going to graduate college!

Let me find the specifics.

I read an article not long ago about colleges simply graduating students because of athletic scholarships, family ties to the universities ($$$$$$$$), political pressure, etc., when these students were failing.

I didn't keep the article and have tried in vain to find it on the Internet but cannot. I will keep trying.

Realize I need to have documentation before posting such a controversial statement, but I just figured most people who care deeply about education in America are aware of these studies.

I am and I am perhaps the least knowledgeable one on this board in such matters.

 

drum roll.......................

Researchers, working with an exam plagiarism watchdog, say that very few of these cheating students are caught.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3852869.stm

Summary of a decade of survey research by the Center for Academic Integrity finds student cheating is persuasive.

How Dartmouth failed to punish 78 students in a mass cheating episode

Not just cheating students: Universities struggle with range of ethics problems.

"Dishonesty in the Academy." Article by Robert Hauptman. (2002)

Link:

http://www.cheatingculture.com/education.htm

 

more to come.

http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/WomensStudies/plag.htm

According to a 1999 survey conducted by Donald McCabe, a Rutgers University professor and the founder of the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University, more than 75 percent of college students admit to some form of cheating. About one third of the 2,100 participating students admitted to serious test cheating, and half admitted to one or more instances of serious cheating on written assignments.

Source:http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2001/11/27/3c03502bad345?in_archive=1

 

Re: Re: don't forget the...........

Perhaps I'm not intelligent enough to follow it, but this whole thread reads like an exercise in free-association. My head is spinning. (Saves money of beer though, I just read Degreeinfo to feel intoxicated.)

While you are more comprehensible than Quinn, I still don't really understand what you are arguing for, Jimmy. It does seem to me that you are trying to minimize if not collapse the accredited/non-accredited distinction. In my mind that is supporting degree mills, but I'm probably misunderstanding you.

'Good' in what sense? Good in terms of the educational opportunities they provide? Or good in terms of the credibility of the degrees they award? Those are two separate issues.

I definitely agree with you that some (probably a small minority though) of non-accredited schools do provide good instruction and have active intellectual lives. I've posted about a few of them that I happen to like.

But if accreditation is absent, then how are individuals outside the school-student relationship supposed to know about any of that stuff? That's Quinn's original "internal validation" issue. (The term sounds like an oxymoron to me.) If a "degree" can mean anything, then it means nothing at all. So even those few good nonaccredited schools might be producing degrees that aren't very good.

I'm circumspect about saying that there are non-accredited schools that grant good degrees. There may be a few of them that have built up a reputation in a specialized community that's familiar with what they are doing. The school's degrees might have name recognition and even respect in that niche application. An example might be a non-accredited seminary that exists to prepare clergy for the denomination that operates it.

I think that if a school is accredited, then there's a reasonable expectation that the school adheres to acceptable academic standards and has procedures in place to help insure that they continue to be met.

The difference is this:

Probably a majority of unaccredited DL-specialist schools are degree-mills that sell "degrees" on the basis of "life experience" or just the ability to type credit card numbers.

But I don't think that any accredited school fits that description. Fraud and deception do occur from time to time, as when clerical employees take money to "fix" student records. But that's a violation of the process, not the process working as designed. That's why we call it "fraud" and "deception" in the first place.

A guarantee with absolute certainty? No. But it does justify a reasonable expectation. That's precisely whats missing with the vast majority of unaccredited schools.

Then why bother to earn a degree at all?

Why not just pursue education, accredited or not, because its content is interesting and useful? (That's where my own current interests in DL lie.) Treat DL like reading books at the library. Why worry about what anyone else thinks about it? Why bother to tell other people about what you are doing at all? Just let your performance demonstrate what, if anything, you gained from it.

Unfortunately, people seem to want to have it both ways. They argue that "it's the person, not the degree". But then they turn right around and expect other people to recognize, accept and defer to their claims of possessing advanced higher education.

When other people don't automatically buy it, we see all the resentment and claims of descrimination, closed-mindedness and victimization starting.

 

A cluttered mind is the sign of a clean desk!

 

It is my own belief that there are enough knowledgable people on this forum, enough stored information, sufficient debates on basic topics, etc. that it is no longer adequate to make vague statements such as "I think there are some good unaccredited schools out there." I think we already know this is the case. I'd hope that people could be more specific. Which schools? Name them. What makes them good? Specify. We know about a small handfull of good unaccredited schools. We've known about them for years. They are an exception to the rule as the vast majority of unaccredited schools are either substandard and would never survive any legitimate accreditation process or they are degree mills. Repeatedly pointing towards this small group of schools signifies nothing really and entering into some torturously abstract argument about how theoretically, accreditation isn't necessary really doesn't advance anything. It's just driving around the block over and over. Don't get me wrong, you are free to continue if you wish, I just find it tiresome when we repeatedly see the same old arguemnts, the same old refutations, the same old claims and the same old denials.
Please pardon my rant.
Jack

 

In the thread-starting post, I stated:

Eight months into my dissertation, I am just short of being half done at roughly 50k words to date. Perhaps the remainder will go more quickly, perhaps not. Thus, I shall not be qualified (by the criterion I mentioned) to name anything from personal experience until such time (perhaps 8 months from now, perhaps less {not likely}, perhaps more), if (and only if) what results is a "wonderful dissertation" in the eyes of my advisor and examiners and the scholarly community.

 

1) On the question of good UA schools:

In my area of interest , Evangelical graduate Biblical/Theological Studies (note:not pastoral studies) , there are several academically "good" but UA schools. By "academically" good I mean to purposely not focus on praxis but on the acquisition of the knowledge of the Biblical text, historical and systematic theology, languages, research skills and the like. I do not mean the ability to be a successful pastor ; I mean the ability to be a successful student in higher grad studies in RA schools.

One such good but UA school is Detroit Baptist Seminary. Another is (was before TRACS too) BJU.What makes these academically "good" ?

It is that several accredited seminaries recognize that MA/MDiv graduates from these schools are well prepared to enter and succeed in more advanced studies at RA schools. Dallas, eg, or TEDS ,as I understand it, have a high expectation that Detroit grads will do well in Dallas or TEDS, and I know of BJU grads who have earned PhDs at Westminster (if my memory does not fail me)

But, in contrast, there are some UA schools oft here discussed which while having some substance nevertheless do not have the reputation in Evangelical academe that Detroit or BJU has.

So, from my admittedly limited perspective, the academic quality of a UA school much correlates to the estimate RA schools have of it.



2) On the question of does the man make the degree or does the degree make the man?

Remember, now, the limited area in which I venture to opine: Grad Theological education.

Yes, some with less than wonderful docs nevertheless succeed wonderfully in Evangelical academe . EG, one is James White with his ThD from the tiny, UA CES. I really don't suppose that the CES ThD made White what he is.

Rather I think the case is that the school most often contributes more to making the man a rigorous academic than the man making his school a rigorous institution. It is the school, after all, which sets the height of the entry bar into grad work. If that is low, I doubt the level of instruction will be high. It is the school which designs the content and rigor of the curriculum. If that curriculum is filled with courses lacking equivalency in content or substance with RA schools offering the like degree , then it is unlikely that the student will rise above these substandard qualities. It is the school which sees to it that its profs are both qualified and efficient to teach in their areas and at that level. If they are not , then the poor student will not likely make up the difference lacking in the profs!

So, from my perspective it is the school which makes the man (or woman).

 

Dr Grover said: "Rather I think the case is that the school most often contributes more to making the man a rigorous academic than the man making his school a rigorous institution."

That's just it. To propose the opposite is simply folie de grandeur.
Or the tail wagging the dog.

 

Brilliant posts and now the circular arguments come to an end with a post of specificity.

Hence my posts on this thread also conclude.

 

So Boston University is a diploma mill?

Jimmy, citing some bad behavior at accredited schools doesn't suddenly lower the bar to let in crummy unaccredited schools. You first use hyperbolic, unsupported statements, then you use a few exceptions to try to establish your point. It doesn't wash.