DETC and RA

I just went and looked at the list of DETC accredited degree-granting institutions.

http://www.detc.org/content/degree.html

Here's all of the listed schools that offer masters degrees or above. (I excluded Leicester, UNISA and WGU which have other accreditation.)

1. American College of Computer and Information Sciences

2. American Graduate University

3. American Health Science University

4. American Military University

5. American Public University

6. Andrew Jackson University

7. Aspen University

8. Atlantic University

9. Babel University Professional School of Translation

10. California College for Health Sciences

11. California National University for Advanced Studies

12. Canadian School of Management (I'm not sure if this one offers masters degrees or not.)

13. Cardean University

14. The Catholic Distance University

15. College of the Humanities and Sciences

16. Columbia Southern University

17. Concord University School of Law

18. Global University

19. Holmes Institute

20. ICI University

21. Institute of Public Administration

22. International Management Centres Association (IMCA)

23. Revans University - The University of Action Learning

24. Universidad FLET

25. University of Management and Technology

26. University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences

27. William Howard Taft University

 

If we are going to compare DETC schools with RA, what kind of RA schools should we choose?

Since DETC schools don't offer conventional doctoral programs, it would be unfair to compare them to doctoral-research universities. So le's compare them to the Carnegie/USNews 'masters' category.

Here's a sampling of the best of the USNews "top tier" from that class:

Villanova U.
Rochester I. of Technology
U. Richmond
James Madison U.
Valparaiso U.
Creighton U.
Trinity U. (TX)
Santa Clara U.
Gonzaga U.
Cal Poly (SLO)

Frankly, I don't think that the DETC schools show very well in this kind of competition.

So let's compare the DETC schools with the fourth tier of the USNews 'masters' schools.

Here's a sampling of some of the best of the fourth tier masters schools (selected by USNews 'academic reputation' score):

Buffalo State (NY)
CUNY C. Staten I.
Edinboro U. (PA)
Framingham State C. (MA)
U. Maryland- E. Shore
Arkansas Tech. U.
LSU- Shreveport
U. Louisiana- Monroe
Ferris State U. (MI)
IU-PU Fort Wayne
Minot State U. (ND)
Roosevelt U. (IL)
U. Wisconsin- Parkside
CSUDH
CSU San Bernardino
Lamar U. (TX)
U. Central Oklahoma
U. So. Colorado

OK, so, if those are examples of the best of the fourth tier, what are some examples of the worst fourth tier schools? Here's all of the ones that got USNews academic reputation scores of less than 2.0:

Anna Maria C. (MA)
Cheyney U. (PA)
U.D.C.
Maharishi U. Mgmt.
Peru State C. (NE)
National U. (CA)
New College of CA
Western International U. (AZ)

 

Hi Bill,

This data provides an interesting comparison. It is clear that DETC universities are way out gunned here.

I think we have to take the DETC schools for what they are. They will never be prestigious or even high tier RA universities. They are an alternative source for students who are established, older or in other situations. They are legitimate and provide distance education.

There are better RA schools and better DETC schools. I see the DETC schools compare more to a TESC , COSC or Excelsior.

Thanks,
Mike

 

I'm not sure what this analysis represents nor what is being analyzed or compared. I think your point revolves around name recognition, yes? Maybe age of institution? Does each school listed have a distance program and can they be compared? Are the programs comparable? (For instance, there aren't many on that list that have comparable military history and strategy programs similar to American Military University). Are the factors used by USNews applicable to DETC? Hard to reach conclusions from the presentation of several lists. Just a few thoughts.

 

It's not really an analysis yet. I'm just trying to cast some light on what the universe of discourse is.

Other threads talk glibly about "DETC" and "RA", but there's no real attempt to clarify what those categories include or what's being compared to what.

Only indirectly. I'm more interested in the reasons why schools obtain recognition.

I'll post some highlights from the "footprint" of a reasonably strong RA 'masters' university in a moment.

 

Here's an "X-Ray" of a "second tier" RA 'masters' university: San Francisco State University.

1. SFSU/UC Berkeley astronomy professor Geoffrey Marcy, the world's leading discoverer of extra-solar planets:
http://cannon.sfsu.edu/~gmarcy/cv.html

2. California and Carnegie Extrasolar Planet Search
http://exoplanets.org/science.html

3. Lick Observatory planet search site:
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~gmarcy/planetsearch/upsand/upsand.html

4. Marcy delivers the 2000 George Darwin Lecture to the Royal Astronomical Society in London
http://www.ras.org.uk/html/meetings/2000/000114.html

5. SFSU film graduate Steve Zaillian won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1994 for 'Schindler's List'. He was nominated for best original screenplay in 2003 for 'Gangs of New York'. He also did adapted screenplays for 'Awakenings' in 1990, for 'Hannibal' in 2001 and an original screenplay for 'A Civil Action' in 1999.
http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2003/22.htm

6. SFSU film graduate Christopher Boyes won Academy Awards for Best Sound for 'Titanic' in 1997 and for 'Pearl Harbor' in 2001. He was nominated in 2003 for 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' and in 2001 for 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring'.
http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2003/22.htm

7. SFSU broadcast communications arts graduate Peter Casey. With David Lee and David Angell, Casey created the TV show 'Cheers',. Susequently created, produced and wrote 'Frazier'. Winner of seven Emmy Awards.
http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2002/38.htm

8. SFSU drama graduate Annette Bening
http://www.sfsu.edu/~hotshots/film.htm

9. SFSU drama graduate David Carridine
http://www.sfsu.edu/~hotshots/film.htm

10. SFSU drama graduate Dana Carvey
http://www.sfsu.edu/~hotshots/film.htm

11. SFSU drama graduate Danny Glover
http://www.sfsu.edu/~hotshots/film.htm

12. SFSU film graduate Steven Okazaki's film 'Days of Waiting' won the 1991 Academy Award for Best Short Subject
http://www.sfsu.edu/~hotshots/film.htm

13. SFSU film graduate Arthur Dong's film 'Sewing Women' was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1982
http://www.sfsu.edu/~hotshots/film.htm

14. SFSU hosted the Spring 2003 Western Section Meeting of the American Mathematical Society, attracting 200 mathematicians from 38 states and 17 countries.
http://www.ams.org/new-in-math/press/sanfrancisco-2003-sectional.html

15. SFSU hosts second "BAD Math" day (Bay Area Discrete Math) which are informal gatherings of local mathematicians working on things like combinatorics.
http://badmathday.csuhayward.edu/sfsu01.html

16. University of Chicago's astronomy department refers people intereted in extra-solar planets to SFSU.
http://astro.uchicago.edu/news/hot7.html

17. 1999 American Astronomical Society meeting on extra-solar planets
http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v30n4/aas193/S970.htm

18. BBC news story on extra-solar planets
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/319865.stm

19. Pamela Vaughn, classics, received the 2001 Excellence in Teaching award from the American Philological Association
http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/cmemo/spring02/jan28.htm

20. Frank V. DeBellis Collection of Italian artifacts
http://www.library.sfsu.edu/special/debellis.html
http://www.library.sfsu.edu/special/exhibit.html

21. The Sutro Egyptian Collecton
http://www.sfsu.edu/~museumst/sutro/
http://humanities.sfsu.edu/museumst/sutro/

22. SFSU hosts the Fourth Conference on Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity. Travel, Communication and Geography in Late Antiquity.
http://www.mcauley.acu.edu.au/aabs/seminar_nov00.htm

23. Classical archaeology courses taught recently:
http://www.sfsu.edu/~bulletin/courses/clar.htm

24. SFSU's Richard Hoffman delivers talk on 'Regional Diversity and Imperial Unity: The Roman Empire and the Creation of a Universal People' at UC Berkeley
http://ias.berkeley.edu/orias/Agenda2000.html

25. SFSU's Cihuatan archaeological project in El Salvador
http://online.sfsu.edu/~kbruhns/cihuatan/welcome.html

26. Archaeological Institute of America, San Francisco Society
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~barbaram/AIA.htm

27. Moss Landing Marine Laboratories
http://www.mlml.calstate.edu/

28. MLML's research ship, R/V Point Sur, owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by MLML.
http://www.mlml.calstate.edu/marinops/marinops.htm

29. National Shark Research Consortium's Pacific Shark Research Center at MLML
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/nsrc/moss.htm

30. Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute joint library
http://www.mlml.calstate.edu/library/library.htm

31. MLML Center for Habitat Studies
http://mmug.calfish.org/mlmlprofile.htm

32. MBARI's facility adjacent to MLML, with UCSC participation http://sapphire.cse.ucsc.edu/reinas-instrument-tour/mbari-ml.html

33. Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctary http://montereybay.noaa.gov/intro/aboutoffice/researchstaff.html

34. Joint UCSF/SFSU Physical Therapy program
http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~ptprog/

35. SFSU's cryogenic electronics lab
http://coolchips.sfsu.edu/

36. SFSU's underwater acoustics lab
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~bland/research/uarg.html

37. SFSU's Pioneer Seamount Underwater Observatory
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~seamount/

38. SFSU's quantum optics lab
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~laser/

39. Analysis of a small anticyclonic tornado with unusual features in the Silicon Valley area
http://tornado.sfsu.edu/Geosciences/Activities/SLS_Conference/Sunnyvale/Sunnyvale.html

40. SFSU's Conceptual and Information Arts (CIA) program, offering bachelors degrees and an MFA.
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/

41. Steven Wilson, chairman of SFSU's CIA, is on the board of directors of Leonardo/The International Society for Arts, Sciences and Technology
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/isastboard.html

42. Examples of Steven Wilson's art experiments:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~swilson/wilson.art.html

43. Wilson's recent book 'Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology_ by Stephen Wilson, MIT Press/Leonardo Books_ 2002
http://online.sfsu.edu/~swilson/book/infoartsbook.html

44. Wilson's other writings
http://online.sfsu.edu/~swilson/papers/publications.html

45. Joint SFSU - SF Art Institute art education track
http://www.sanfranciscoart.edu/artedu.htm

46. SFSU's Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives, founded in 1954 through a gift from W.H. Auden
http://www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/history.html

47. Medieval Forum, an e-journal dedicated to medieval English literature
http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/

48. Review of 'Modern Esoteric Spirituality' , edited by SFSU's Jacob Needleman and and the Sorbonne's Antoine Faivre. (World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, Volume 21.) New York: Crossroad, 1992.
http://www.cosmopolis.com/df/bkrmodeso.html

49. Ron Epstein's resources for the study of Buddhism
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/Buddhism.htm

50. Some of Kent Bach's online papers in the philosophy of language
http://online.sfsu.edu/~kbach/

51. SFSU one of the hosts of the 75'th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, 2001 in San Francisco.
http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/divisions/pacific/2001meeting/letter.html

52. Needleman one of CIIS' advisory 'council of sages'
http://www.ciis.edu/admin/needleman.html

53. SFSU's Anita Silvers is Secretary/Treasurer of the American Phlosophical Association's Pacific Division
http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/divisions/pacific/officers03-04.html

And this is just a sampling that could easily be expanded into the hundreds.

 

Bill,

Your initial posts were quite liberally sprinkled with the notion of comparisons. On what basis were you were making comparisons with DETC and US News Tier 1-4 schools and coming to the conclusion that DETC would not fair well? (taking into consideration some of the questions I raised). The SFSU post shows a good deal of Google testing in order to profile SFSU but it's not clear to me what the point is.

 

My pet school is the American Military University. This school is a very recent invention in Northern Virginia and has become quite well recognized since it was accredited by DETC. Google on "American Military University" comes up with 6,500 hits which includes numerous academic, military, and industrial contributions, aside from the school marketing stuff. Very strong school in the area of military history, defense intelligence, space warfare, international conflict, etc. And my point is....?? DETC has some good schools too that I think rival or better some of the RA schools.

 

I would like to know in what way does Excelsior-Charter Oak State College- Thomas Edison State College, exceed the education quality available from DETC schools? You know the big three recomended regularly. Is this the vastly superior quality of RA being demonstrated? How does the quality of RA DL schools stack up against this list from US News2003.
Best liberal arts schools:
1-Amherst College, MA
2-Swathmore College, PA
3-Williams College, MA
4-Wellesley College, MA
5-CarletonCollege, MN
6-Pomona College,CA
7-Bowdoin College, ME
8-Middlebury College,VT
9-Davidson College, NC
10- Haverford College, PA

This lists 50 colleges. USNEWS.COM

 

This is certainly a fine list of colleges. So that we may compare, which of these wonderful schools offer degrees by distance learning?

As you infer a deficit in the educational quality of DETC schools. Would you please explain what steps in their educational process you find weak? Perhaps the books, proctored tests, their failure to grant degrees based on previous education, their annoying habit of making people study books and take tests rather than testing out for a degree?

 

Imply.

 

Infer- to derive by reasoning; to guess; speculate, surmise, involve as a conclusion, to hint; imply; suggest
Source= Random House Webster's College Dictionary 1997

 

What, no Angela Davis???

 

So far I haven't really done that. I just defined each class a little more clearly. I haven't really commented on whether or not DETC schools overlap the RA schools, how many of them do so and how many don't, where they would fall in a "tier" system or about how the overall RA and DETC distributions compare.

My only observation so far is that the DETC schools don't seem to stack up very well against the stronger RA 'masters' level schools.

You can make all kinds of observations about it. Personally, I don't think that DETC schools can present a similar "footprint". (And SFSU isn't the most prominent masters level university by any means.) That suggests that at least some RA schools are doing things that most DETC schools aren't. (And that it's more than just a matter of name recognition.)

That's why I listed some of the stronger and weaker schools within the "fourth tier" RA 'masters' category. I suspect that this is generally where the comparison between RA and DETC will most realistically be made.

 

Swarthmore, not Swathmore.
Imply, not infer.
"As you infer (sic)..."--sentence fragment
"Perhaps the books..."--ditto
"in what way does Excelsior Charter Oak TESC"--verb agreement

 

I think we are comparing apples to oranges here. The mission of the DETC is just that, they accredit as the Distance Education Training Council. They accredit distance education providers.

Regional Accreditation accredits so many more universities.They have a variety of service delivery, (ie brick&mortar, distance,or portfolio). By numbers alone, RA has a distinct advantage of being able to accredit some excellent universities. RA has their share of lower tier schools also.

If we compare for example... University of Phoenix to American Military University or Thomas Edison State College to Cardean University that may be a better type of analysis.

 

I am troubled by these comparisons. It appears that many people make a leap to the DETC being less valuable than RA and then the next leap to they are not worthy somehow. I think that misses the point entirely. DETC is a reasonable form of accreditation, specifically dedicated to distance education. In many ways, this kind of accreditation is not something that RA programs do as their single focus of accreditatin. They focus on brick and mortar program an have seemingly begrudgingly taken on distance ed as a secondary task.

More important, DETC has created an avenue for people who could not pursue RA programs to earn legitimate degrees that they can use to advance themselves. SOmemes it is the quality of the individual not the school that ultimately makes the difference, but the degree, no matter where it comes from, if it is accredited, serves as the permission slip to advance. Everyone makes different choices about school to meet their own needs. Not everyone needs Harvard, not everyone needs RA, sometimes DETC is the right answer and it is a legitimate way to go, and because it is accredited, stand heads and shoulders above non-accredited options. It is a trusted and reasonable option. It does not matter how they compare to any of the tiers of U.S. News.

 

The DETC was founded in 1926 and was at that time called the National Home Study Council. It has accredited members in Canada, Ireland, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

A 2001 survey of DETC graduates showed that of those who attempted ( and only 1-3 did attempt ) to transfer credits and degrees from a DETC school to a traditional college or university, 2-3 were successful.

 

The RA University of Phoenix takes a pounding because it is a distance education provider. I have heard comments from people when I was a TESC student. They are both adequate RA universities.

They are no better than the DETC universities and they share the same mission. Distance education is coming into it's own and DETC accreditation is here to stay. If anything, RA universities are adjusting to compete with the DETC universities and their educational delivery style.

 

Actually, I believe a majority of U of P's students are bricks and mortar. They take a pounding because they have the reputation of being the K-Mart of RA schools but charge like Saks.

RA schools have been offering distance learning since at least the 30's. They are in no way new to the field or being pulled into it because of DETC.

For the most part the RA world ignores both DETC and unaccredited schools. When they do notice them certainly it increases competition which obviously is good.